Foundation Spotlight

Exploring Lights & Sounds

In Exploration this term, we are learning about lights and sounds. Students have been looking at reflections in mirrors, listening to the sounds outside, finding objects in the rooms that make similar sounds, guessing what object has made a particular sound, and making and finding shadows. 

Here are some highlights from each Foundation Class.

Foundation A Reflections

We listened to a sound and drew our own monster. Mine has tentacles around its mouth and it has 800 legs. ~ Ted

My sound monster is called Grogu. Grogu likes to eat frogs. He’s purple with one big eye and he has two eyes at the top of his head. ~ Alice

We listened to sounds that went ‘eee’ ‘eee’ ‘eee’. They sounded like frogs. My sound monster's name is Calangula. She likes cooking muffins and she is pink and fluffy. ~ Willa

My monster puts its light up shoes on at night and goes out to the path and cooks different meats. It has 4 hands and arms. The monster came up into my head when I heard the different sounds. ~ Kenji

Foundation B Reflections

In Foundation B we discussed what we knew about sound and tried to make sounds using objects found in the classroom. 

• 'Sound travels in waves.' ~ Francis
• Ruby experimented making sounds by banging plastic bottles together. 
• Avery and Harry investigated the sounds of a keyboard and a phone. They tried to create music by pressing keys in rhythm. 
• Nemmo and Arlo noticed that glue sticks make a popping sound when the lid is pulled off quickly, but not slowly. 
• Leah thought that air in a cup made it sound ‘hollow’.

Foundation B students also created sound creatures. After listening to five sounds students drew a sound creature. (Sound 1 Sound 2 Sound 3 Sound 4 Sound 5)

We listened to five sounds and drew the animals that made them. Then we wrote about our drawing. It was lots of fun. ~ Will

My creatures are called Tomato-Face and Messy-Face. Messy-Face has a messy face and Tomato-Face has a tomato head. They both have one eye and wings. ~ Penny

My sound creature is called Spidey. Spidey has black hair and is smiley. He has a pet. ~ Daisy

I heard a bird so I made my creature a WoodPecker. ~ Jack

My sound creature was called Padd. I named him after my brother Paddy. Padd was a bird and he had a sheep friend. ~ Quinn

Foundation C Reflections

Students listened to music and created their own sound monsters. They were asked the question, 'Why did you draw that type of sound monster?'

• I listened to the music and it was relaxing and the other one I heard some trees. The other one made me feel like I was having a cup of tea. The last one made me feel like I had cereal for Brekky. ~ Raff
• I drew a bird, cheetah, wave, and tree monsters. ~ Harry
• This one made me think of a bird and this one made me think of a dinosaur. ~ Daisy
• Mine made me think of eating pasta for dessert. ~ Leo
• It made me think of Gruffalos! ~ Devon
• It made me feel like a bird was flapping in the air. ~ Frankie
• It made me feel like being at the beach. ~ Bertie
• It made me feel like a bird and the second one was like underwater and the other one was like a cat and the fourth one was like small. ~ Stella

Students discussed what they know already about sound as well as what they want to learn about sound. Some wanted to know what happens to your throat when you lose your voice in addition to what type of sound water makes.

Students then went on a ‘sound hunt’, searching for two sounds which made similar sounds. 

• Some children discovered that two objects made out of the same material, such as wood, made similar sounds.
• Harry found out that the Velcro on his shoe made the same sound as moving the plastic piece on a toy car.
• Other children found that the sounds of the blocks changed depending on how hard they hit the items on the table.
• Daisy’s theory was that the sound produced depended on the actual weight of the object as it hit the table. 

Foundation D Reflections

We made up these sound creatures and they weren’t real but we named them and wrote about them. And then we stuck them up on the wall above our new door in the classroom. My sound creature is called Blob and he lives in water and he eats little sea snakes and bugs that swim in the sea and stuff. ~ Frankie

First we listened to some sounds (sound 1 and sound 2) from creatures and we all made different animals what are maybe extinct or made up. We writed facts about them and they have different powers. Mine can make people be in glue and when the glue dries up on them they are stuck to something. ~ Max

We made sound creatures. We had to picture what the sounds could be and what it made you think of. It was like a bubbly sound and it made me think of a monster cross chicken. My creature is called Modly Monster. ~ Ivy

My creature is called Fluffy. It likes to play. It eats fruits and lives in the bushes next to a house. ~ Zariah

~ Foundation Teachers (Zoe, Tom, Kelly & Grace) and Students