ABSTRACT
This chapter explores cross-curricular contexts for work on light and sound. Analysing children's annotated drawings has shown how they provide useful insights into children's thinking, such as eliciting the common confusions between shadows and reflections and between volume and pitch. The chapter describes a range of possibilities for observation, pattern-noticing and fair tests to develop children's understanding of light and sound. It focuses on various ways of making sounds, finding out children's ideas about how these sounds travel through air and enter the ears. The chapter also explores potential for investigating ear trumpets, string telephones and sound insulation using data-logging equipment, together with kinaesthetic ways to help children model how sound travels through different media. Celebrations such as birthdays, Christmas, Divali and Hanukkah are often used as topics in which to explore aspects of light. There are opportunities to explore reflective materials, shiny papers, stained-glass windows and various sources of light, for example candles and Christmas-tree lights.
