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Can You Make Music with Water?

By Karen Cox | Affiliate Disclosure | Filed Under: 5 Senses, Science Center Ideas

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This science center display explores water and sound.

Make Music with Water: Science Center

To make this display, I used glass vases from a craft store ($0.99 each). I added liquid watercolor paint to a pitcher of water (you could also use food color), and poured the water into the vases. The little wooden mallet is a guiro mallet from our collection of classroom instruments. Children use the mallet to gently tap the vases as they listen to the musical notes made.

Make Music with Water

The reason I used the same color of water in each vase is so young children understand it is the amount of water in the vases that makes the sound different, not the color of the water. If you use a different color of water in each vase, young children could get confused and think the color of the water has something to do with the difference in sound.

Make Music with Water

Extend the Activity

To show children that sound is made by a vibration (in this case, a vibration of the water), try this additional sound vibration activity. Tie a piece of string to a metal spoon. Wrap the string around a child’s finger and have the child place their finger in their ear. Tap the spoon with another spoon as it is hanging (not touching anything else). The child may have to tilt their head a bit, so the string and spoon are not touching their body. Talk about how the vibration from your spoon tap traveled up the string to their ear.

Supplies

The Amazon link is an affiliate link — thanks for supporting PreKinders!

Liquid watercolor paint can be purchased online at Discount School Supply, Dick Blick, or Amazon. I have used and can recommend Colorations and Sax brands. Liquid watercolor is an essential in my Pre-K classroom — it can be used for so many things!

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9 Comments

About Karen Cox

Karen is the founder of PreKinders.com. She also works as a full-time Pre-K teacher in Georgia. Read more...

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Susan says

    September 2, 2013 at 9:30 pm

    Great idea with young learners and a nice activity to use in music for cross curriculum
    music/science.

    Susan

    Reply
  2. Karen Cox says

    November 26, 2013 at 1:02 am

    Thanks Susan!

    Reply
  3. maria says

    February 25, 2014 at 2:48 pm

    Thank you for the fun and great idea, although I don’t feel comfortable leaving preschoolers “banging” the glass vases with the wooden mallet to understand sound waves.
    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Karen Cox says

      February 25, 2014 at 5:24 pm

      Ok, so supervise them. 🙂

      Reply
      • Corrine says

        April 20, 2019 at 9:07 am

        I used a cheap glass fish bowl for 3 years as a Cat in the Hat prop in pretend play. It never broke. Then this year one of my kids dropped it on the carpet and it shattered: Glass everywhere! Guess what? No one died. The kids all froze and I told them to step back and they all stared at me and watched me carefully throw away the large shards in the trash can and then thoroughly vacuum the carpet. We talked about vacuuming in all directions to be sure to get all the glass up. The girl who dropped it started to cry and I got to explain that sometimes things break it’s OK. You don’t get punished for dropping something. She cheered up. We talked about where we could buy a new one, etc., etc. IT WAS A LESSON! Just like every other “accident” that happens in the pre-k classroom. They learn something from it. They actually learned a lot of things from it.

        Reply
  4. Cheryl says

    December 6, 2014 at 11:25 am

    Love science with my students. Where did you purchase the glass tubes?

    Reply
    • Karen Cox says

      December 7, 2014 at 7:16 pm

      Hi, Those tubes came from Michaels. They are vases.

      Reply
  5. Grace says

    February 9, 2018 at 2:38 pm

    Can’t wait to try this with my preschool class!

    Reply
  6. Teresa Dixon Richardson says

    January 23, 2021 at 9:19 pm

    Awesome idea. I’m using it next week with my class. Thank you

    Reply

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Welcome!

Glad you're here! You'll find hands-on learning activities, themes, and printables for Pre-K, Preschool, and Kindergarten kids. I'm Karen Cox, a Pre-K teacher in Georgia. I have taught 4-5 year olds for 20+ years! Read More…

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Welcome!
Would you like to join my FREE weekly update newsletter? Join 85,000+ subscribers!
We collect, use, and process your data according to our Privacy Policy.
Don't worry - we never sell or share email addresses!