Musical Bottles

Let beautiful music fill your room and help children take their first steps in exploring sound with this simulation of tapping bottles to make sounds,

Musical Bottles lets children study how sounds can be made, and how the pitch of the sound can be changed. Children will learn, by investigation, that sounds can be created by tapping bottles, causing vibrations to travel through the air to the ear, which is how they can be heard.

In Musical Bottles, the sound is illustrated by a depiction of a sound wave or by a musical note. Changing the level of the water in a bottle, by pouring in or emptying water, changes the pitch. By tapping a number of bottles filled to different levels, children can play a simple tune which can even be recorded and played back!

Musical Bottles has an on-screen prompt from a helpful scientist to enable children find the features of the program, as well as having audio help. It has a reporting option to enable children’s progress to be checked by a teacher or a parent, and an option page to tailor the program to suit the children. The activity works in English and Spanish, which has the additional benefit of helping children with their second language!

Musical Bottles is part of a series of science apps from Storm Educational, whose apps and software have been widely used in schools and at home over many years. More information about Storm Educational is available on our website www.stormeducational.co.uk, or on twitter @stormeducational

Musical Bottles may be used to help work towards the following educational standards:

NGSS (USA)
- Conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound (1-PS4-1)

England
Science: Sound - Year 4
- How sounds are made
- Vibrations travel through a medium to the ear
- Pitch

Scotland
Science: Vibration and Waves
- Explore ways of making sounds (SCN 0-11a)
- Change pitch (SCN 1-11a)

Wales
Enquiry Key Stage 2
- Pupils should be given opportunity to carry out different types of enquiry, eg using and applying models
- Understand there are many kinds and sources of sound, and sounds are heard when they enter the ear

Northern Ireland
Knowledge of the World Key Stage 2
Understand how sound travels

Australia
Physical Sciences, Year 1
- Light and sound are produced by a range of sources and can be sensed (ACSSU080)

New Zealand
Physical World: Physical Enquiry and Physical Concepts Levels 1 and 2
- Explore physical phenonema such as light and sound