Location: Henderson Elementary School
Molly split us into groups where Emma and I
paired up to work with Justin.
The first ‘instrument’ we were going to make was using a plastic
straw. The idea was very simple and all
one had to do was cut an end into a triangular point, take a deep breath and then
blow into it. All of us tried that,
though I was the only one who succeeded in getting any sound out of it. And when I say sound, I mean a high pitched
squeal that dogs hear! The second experiment
was making a ‘Water Whistle’. Once again, this employed a plastic straw and
this time we had to partially cut the straw a third of the way from the top and
then bend it at the cut, without breaking in two. Next we had to insert the longer end of the
straw in water and then keeping it at a 90 degree angle, blow into the shorter end. This was supposed to produce a whistling
sound and once again, I managed to extract some noise from it. Justin was more interested in blowing bubbles
in water and also experimenting by making long chain of straws, one inside the
other.
Amidst all of this noise, Molly
was trying to explain the concepts of ‘vibration’, which is why we were able to
generate all of this sound. But her
lesson was, well... falling on deaf ears since, all of the kids were doing their best
to make as much noise as possible. For
the next experiment we were going to make something known as ‘Cuica’, which is a Brazilian ‘friction drum’. For this we required a plastic cup with a
tine hole at the base. We then had to
pass a string through it, tying a paper clip at its end to function as a ‘stopper’. Then we were to wet a piece of paper towel
and rub it along the string to create a sound.
The idea was that when we rubbed the wet paper towel on the string, it
first sticks, then slides, causing the string to vibrate and create sound; with
the cup amplifying it. Amongst all the
things we had done today, I enjoyed this the most. The concept worked extremely well for me as well as everyone else. Soon we had a
‘Cuica’ session in full flow and
Molly had an idea. She asked all the
children to come to the front of the room with their instrument and assemble a
band. One kid would create a rhythm
by clapping, and the others would ‘strum’ their ‘Cuica’ to follow the clapping beat. This seemed to work and soon there was a
brilliant cacophony of ‘Cuica’ coming
from the front of the classroom. I told
Emma that this was too good to pass and I joined them as well. This prompted some of the other volunteers to
do the same and we had an impromptu concerto, which included a lot of clapping,
a lot of ‘Cuica’, and even more
laughter.
For our final activity, Molly had
printed Bingo cards with squares filled with musical and sound related
words. One kid was calling out the words, and since all the cards had all the words - just in a different order - we had
frequent calls of “Bingo”. I was using green and orange pieces of paper
to cover my card and tried different combinations, to no avail. It seems like my Bingo ‘luck’ from Lakeview
had followed me here. We next tried a
more difficult Bingo game where the word had to correspond with one of the
letters B-I-N-G-O. This lengthened the
game a bit, but then one of the kids won, though it wasn't Justin. Poor guy was getting frustrated and at one stage
flung his card aside. Emma and I wanted
to tell him it’s just a game, but could understand why he would feel like that
since all of his other classmates had won.
Even so, Molly made sure he got his share of the candy prize.
Date: Saturday, March 23, 2013; 9:50am-12:00 pm
Travelling to Henderson had become
second nature to me and I knew I was certain to meet someone at Garfield train
station. Such was the case today, as I
saw Molly waiting for the bus. She was
leading the project this week and told me we would be doing acoustic based
experiments today. Seemed like we were
in for a lot of noise this morning and for once, the kids were going to be
allowed to do so.
At the school, other volunteers
started to filter in and besides Pat, who is a regular, we had Emma and Andy
from last time, and Ted and Jay as two first timers. Amongst the children, I was pleased to see
Joleen and Justin as well as Alice.
There were a few other girls, but the attendance was definitely on the
decline. As an icebreaker, Molly asked
everyone, “What sounds did you hear today”. This resulted in variety of answers ranging
from “Alarm Clock” to “Trains” and “Birds” to “Sports Talk Radio”. On the way to the train station I had seen a
fender bender and heard the screeching sound that accompanies it. But on the train, I had also sat next to a family of three
and heard a little boy’s laughter as his Dad tried to make him laugh by telling
jokes. There was no competition in which
sound I would mention.
 |
| A 'Water Whistle' |
 |
| And this is a 'Cuica' |
After the break we proceeded to
make ‘Cup Telephones’, which are as simple
as passing a long string through two cups and then holding on to one end each, two
people go to opposite sides of the room and use it like a telephone. The only caveat was that only one could talk
at a time, while the other had to hold the cup to their ear to listen. Emma and Justin had a lot of stop and starts
because of this and I thought about telling them to use the walkie-talkie
concept of “Over” after each sentence
so that the other person knows it’s their turn to talk. Despite this we did manage to have a few words
of conversation between the two.
 |
| Bingo! |
Soon, time was up and I left with
Molly. We took the train back into
downtown and talked about Henderson and other projects that Chicago Cares
has. This one had been fun, especially
since the kids had an opportunity to do what their mothers always tell them not
to – make noise. In my bag I was
carrying my ‘Cuica’, which would soon
make it to my office wall. The objective
had been to learn about vibration and sound.
But at the end of the day, the children had just wanted to have fun, not care
about the science. And to be quite
honest, none of us adults had a problem with that.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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