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4th grade · Science · Unit 3 of 8

Sound

Vibrations, pitch, echoes and hearing

What your child practices

Vibrations and sound waves, pitch and volume, how sound travels through different materials but not through empty space, echoes and absorbing sound, how we hear, and how noise and sound devices affect people and animals.

Maine Learning Results learning standard: 4-PS3-2; 4-PS4-1 · sound as vibrations and waves that carry energy

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Sound is made by vibrations that travel as waves through air, water or solids.
  2. Fast vibrations make a high pitch. Slow vibrations make a low pitch.
  3. Sound needs matter to travel through, so there is no sound in space.
  4. An echo is sound bouncing back. Bats use echoes to find food.

Example: A guitar string is tightened so it vibrates faster. What happens to its pitch? Faster vibrations make a higher pitch. Answer: it gets higher

Sound in Maine

In the Maine Learning Results, this is unit 3 of 8 in 4th grade Science, after Light and before Adaptations & Habitats.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Maine Department of Education

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Sound travels fastest through which of these?

    🚂
    • air
    • a vacuum
    • a steel rail

  2. Question 2

    A shorter, tighter guitar string makes a…

    🎸
    • quieter sound
    • silent sound
    • lower pitch
    • higher pitch

  3. Question 3

    A bigger vibration makes a…

    🔊
    • louder sound
    • higher pitch only
    • silent sound
    • quieter sound

  4. Question 4

    Does it absorb sound or reflect it? Tap an item, then tap its basket.

    Sort into: 🧸 absorbs sound · 📣 reflects sound

    • 🪟a window
    • ⬜a tile floor
    • 🟦foam panels
    • 🪟thick curtains
    • 🛏️a pillow
    • 🔩a metal sheet

  5. Question 5

    What causes sound?

    🎸
    • vibrations
    • magnets
    • light
    • colors

  6. Question 6

    A drum is hit softly, then hard. What changes?

    🥁
    • the pitch of every sound
    • the color
    • the speed of sound in air
    • the volume

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