The Victorian era was a time of rapid social change, not least due to the Industrial Revolution which carried with it much scientific innovation and inventions.
One of the inventors from this period is Alexander Graham Bell, who is most famous for his invention of the modern telephone.
Surprisingly, I cannot not find a suitably interesting documentary about Bell, but we did manage to hear a recording of his voice when it was transmitted successfully over the first telephone.
Tiger then read another biography of Bell's and I had him write a short narration of what he has read, which he completed dutifully (meaning: he was less than keen at the idea but did it anyway). On hindsight, I am not sure that making Tiger write a report proves anything other than that the action created a paper trail of what we did; I am not even sure that it shows evidence of real learning! I suppose it provided me with some comfort to know that Tiger can write a short report when it is required of him.
We then moved quickly onto the more fun, hands-on part of making paper-cup phones by joining two cups with a piece of string. Tiger was amused at the result when we were able to communicate to each other from different rooms through our homemade "cup-phones", and he soon forgot the pain of having been made to write a report to allay his mother's momentary, unfounded anxiety with regards to his writing ability.
We are also very lucky in our learning environment to be able to attend a sound workshop with fellow homeschoolers,
where we were treated not only to a wide variety of learning opportunities, from the history of broadcasting to the basics of how sound translates to hearing,
the workshop leader was also very engaging with the children and she was able to demonstrate the basic principles of sound variations using equipment that would be slightly challenging to find at home, such as the one below which demonstrates the relationship between the frequency of sound and vibration:
What the children enjoyed most was being able to get their hands on the numerous exploratory equipment that helped them discover the principles of sound in action.
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Even though many of the basic principles of sound can be demonstrated successfully at home with simpler homemade apparatus, I still appreciate opportunities like this where Tiger is exposed to more sophisticated equipment.
This post is linked up to:
One of the inventors from this period is Alexander Graham Bell, who is most famous for his invention of the modern telephone.
Surprisingly, I cannot not find a suitably interesting documentary about Bell, but we did manage to hear a recording of his voice when it was transmitted successfully over the first telephone.
Tiger then read another biography of Bell's and I had him write a short narration of what he has read, which he completed dutifully (meaning: he was less than keen at the idea but did it anyway). On hindsight, I am not sure that making Tiger write a report proves anything other than that the action created a paper trail of what we did; I am not even sure that it shows evidence of real learning! I suppose it provided me with some comfort to know that Tiger can write a short report when it is required of him.
We then moved quickly onto the more fun, hands-on part of making paper-cup phones by joining two cups with a piece of string. Tiger was amused at the result when we were able to communicate to each other from different rooms through our homemade "cup-phones", and he soon forgot the pain of having been made to write a report to allay his mother's momentary, unfounded anxiety with regards to his writing ability.
We are also very lucky in our learning environment to be able to attend a sound workshop with fellow homeschoolers,
where we were treated not only to a wide variety of learning opportunities, from the history of broadcasting to the basics of how sound translates to hearing,
the workshop leader was also very engaging with the children and she was able to demonstrate the basic principles of sound variations using equipment that would be slightly challenging to find at home, such as the one below which demonstrates the relationship between the frequency of sound and vibration:
What the children enjoyed most was being able to get their hands on the numerous exploratory equipment that helped them discover the principles of sound in action.
Even though many of the basic principles of sound can be demonstrated successfully at home with simpler homemade apparatus, I still appreciate opportunities like this where Tiger is exposed to more sophisticated equipment.
This post is linked up to:
- Hip Homeschool Hop - 3/24/15
- Finishing Strong #48
- History and Geography Meme: What You Have Been Doing This March
- Collage Friday: Some Homeschool Weeks (Years?) Are Just Like That
- Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with all the review
- My Week in Review #30
- Science Sunday: Experimenting with Model Rockets, part 3
I love the different ways you expose your son to 'living' science. It really solidifies the lesson. I'm visiting from weekly wrap up!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words, Nita. :-) We've been lucky to have access to these opportunities.
DeleteOk now a sound workshop sounds very cool!
ReplyDeleteIt was very interesting indeed, and I think the children learnt a lot through the hands-on activities as well! :-)
DeleteSome really useful resources-thank you.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether this would be useful but there is a BBC clip of Alexander Graham Bell. http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/z8kd7ty
Thank you for the link to the BBC clip, Sarah! We'll take a look at it now. :-)
DeleteI am really enjoying your Victorian posts and am bookmarking them for when we reach this era. So glad you are doing it first, saves such a lot of work!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Claire. Glad that you're finding the posts interesting and useful! :-)
DeleteSound is fascinating, isn't it? Thanks for sharing all these great resources - I too am bookmarking!
ReplyDeleteIt is! We use it all the time yet haven't put much thought into it until now, and there's still so much more to learn! :-) I'm glad this post is useful!
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