Audiocity - The power of Sound recording - Lesson Plan idea

One of my favorite classroom lessons is on Sound.  I created a lesson for fifth grade that explored sound and the students had a blast!

I had each of my students pick a primary book that had sound in it.  The Elementary librarian really helped me pick out books.  Some of the books we used were:

• Billy Goat Gruff
• Click, Clack, Moo
• Wheels on the Bus
• Mr. Brown can Moo, can you
• LuLu Loves Noises

In the first class we watch the video - "Sound" on Brainpop JR.   We expanded our vocabulary with some word like:

• Pitch
• volume
• wave

After watching the video and having each student pick their own book, I set up each student with a computer, microphone and a copy of Audiocity.   Audiocity is a free, open-source program that can be downloaded here:  http://audacityteam.org/.

The students read their book to the computer.  It was a loud class with all the students reading at the same time, but audiocity is wonderful in the way it shows sound waves as it records the sounds.   The program is set by default in Stereo, so there are two sound tracks.  To make it simpler for the students, set the program to Mono and you will only see one track.  As the students read their book, they simply read the words and the sound effects.

We played with the pitch settings a little.   I wanted to reinforce the vocabulary that we learned from BrainPop Jr.

At the end of the class, the students had files saved, named after the book they chose.










In preparation for the next class I download all the sound files that I though they would need.  There are many feed sound files available online.  Here are a few:

• SoundJax: http://soundjax.com
• FindSounds: http://www.findsounds.com
• SoundJay: http://www.soundjay.com
• Soungle: http://soungle.com
• Sound Bible: http://soundbible.com
• FindSounds: http://www.findsounds.com
• Flash Kit Sound FX: http://www.flashkit.com/soundfx
• Amazing Sounds: http://amazingsounds.iespana.es/asenatural.htm
• sshhtt: http://www.sshhtt.com
• The Free Sound Project: http://www.freesound.org

I didn't want to send the students to search the websites, so I downloaded the files and stored them in a shared folder.

So when the students arrived for the second class, I had them open the file that contained their reading of the book.  They found the "sound" areas and selected it, muting that section of their recording.  They the loaded in an appropriate sound file and positioned it to correspond with what they had read.

It was a lot of fun

Here is one of the student's work the I uploaded to Podomatic.

Honestly, we had limited success.  They students had a great time doing it, but few of them finished cutting in all the sound effects.

Still the class taught them a lot about sound and they had fun doing it.