My good buddy Mr. Caratachea and I collaborated with 5th grade teacher Ms. Marz at Fair Oaks Elementary School on Monday. Ms. Marz had chatted with me the week before and said that she has recently heard about a sound activity floating around using the makey makey’s. I showed her Julie Smith’s video and she decided she’d like to try the same thing!
We started our lesson by watching a short video created by Mr. Caratachea and Mrs. Hues. Mr. Caratachea taught us all about the different types of pitch that musical instruments make.
Then using my computer I showed the students a piano that Mr. Caratachea and Mrs. Smith helped me create in Scratch! If you aren’t familiar with Scratch let me quickly catch you up! With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge.
I quickly showed the students the back end “code” of the piano and then we quickly shifted to the makey makey’s. The students were working in groups of three. We gave each group a makey makey, told them what supplies they would need and sent them on their way. It took them only a few minutes to get the hang of the idea! When they had assembled the makey makey correctly they plugged it into their computers and tried to make their pianos play from high to low pitch.
Once they figured out which cords to tap on the makey makey we got really brave! Since the makey makeys operate with electric conductors we left the students attach their makey makey wires inside cups of water! The kids had a blast, Mr. C, Ms. Marz and myself had a blast and no computers were hurt in the making of this activity!
If you’d like to try Scratch or the makey makeys with your students let me know! I’d love to learn alongside of you!
