Sounds All Around

Sounds All Around

Snap your fingers. Clap your hands Whistle! Clatter some pans. You're making sounds! Crinkle-crunch through dry leaves. Splish-splash in a puddle.

Sad sounds! Make happy sounds! Scary sounds! Mad sounds! Shake a can of marbles. . . rattle, rattle, rattle. Shake a can of cheese puffs. . . pluff, pluff, pluff. Shake a can of pencils. . . clank, clank, clank. Your sounds fill the air. Make more sounds. Sing. Talk. Hum. Thesesounds come out of your mouth, but they start inyour throat.

Feel your throat as you sing, talk, or hum. Your fingertips tingle because your vocal cordsshake to make sounds. They shake back and forth very fast. This is called vibrating. And that makes the air around them vibrate. These vibrations move through the air in wavescalled sound waves. Now, be quiet. Feel your throat. Your vocalcords are still. They're not vibrating, so there's no sound.

You can't see sound waves, but when they reach your ear, tiny bones in your ear vibrate. Then you hear the sound. Beating a drum makes it vibrate, and then the air around it vibrates. These vibrations ripple throughthe air. They travel from the drumto your ears, and you hear thesound of the drum.

Long ago, people used drum sounds to sendmessages. They beat high sounds, low sounds, fast sounds, slow sounds. These sounds traveledthrough the air, from village to village. Differentdrumbeats sent different messages, such as Rain clouds are forming or A new leader has been chosen.