DAY 6:
Musical Cups
Have you ever made music with just water and cups?
Watch this amazing video of the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker!
Make a Musical Water Scale (from bedtimemath.org)
You’ll need:- 8 identical water glasses
- 1 plastic spoon
- 1 pitcher of water
- 1 set of measuring cups
Arrange the water glasses in a line and fill them up with varying amounts of water. Try to make the increments of water equal. For example, start with 1/8 cup of water in the first one, then fill each succeeding glass so that it has 1/8 cup of water more than the previous glass in line. Tap each glass with the plastic spoon and enjoy the sounds they make!
Experiment by changing the amount of water in each glass and hearing how the sounds change.
How to Play Mary Had a Little Lamb
At some point, your little one is going to tire of playing scales or random notes and move on to playing an actual tune. There’s nothing simpler than everyone’s first nursery rhyme, the 3-note Mary Had a Little Lamb. Here’s how to play it with water glasses:
You’ll need:
- 3 identical large glass tumblers or mason jars
- 1 plastic spoon
- 1 set of measuring cups
- Water (How much water in total will you need? Ask your school-aged child to add up the fractions below! Then ask your preschooler to measure it out.)
- Masking tape and a pen for labeling
Arrange the tumblers in a line and fill them up with the following amounts of water:
Tumbler 1: 1 3/4 cups
Tumbler 2: 1 1/2 cups
Tumbler 3: 1 1/4 cups
Label the tumblers 1, 2, and 3. Tap the glasses in the following order:
3-2-1-2-3-3-3
2-2-2
3-3-3
3-2-1-2-3-3-3
3-2-2-3-2-1
Fun Fact
Each glass makes a sound when you tap its side with a spoon (to avoid breakage, use a plastic spoon, not a wooden or a metal one) because the spoon causes a vibrating sound wave. The sound wave travels through the water in the glass and eventually reaches your ear. Each glass makes a different sound because the sound waves travel through the water at different speeds, causing vibrations at different frequencies. (Frequency refers to the number of times a sound wave vibrates per second).
The glasses with the most water produce the lowest sounds because the sound waves travel slowest (causing the lowest frequency vibrations) through all that water. The glasses with the least amount of water produce the highest sounds because sound waves travel fastest (causing the highest frequency vibrations). In fact, when the sound waves of one note vibrate at twice the frequency of another, the two notes are exactly one octave apart!