ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the themes and contexts available to practitioners when considering how to help children develop their awareness of sounds and light sources in their environments, such as playing with and making musical instruments, or looking at translucent objects on a light box. Children can explore ways to make sounds with instruments, feel the vibrations when sounds are being made and explore pitch and loudness. An investigation that develops children's observation skills involves seeing how many instruments children can recognise when blindfolded, or matching opaque shakers with transparent ones containing the same types of object. Sound, light and space are not specifically mentioned in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. The common Early Years topic of 'seasons' can be used to explore children's awareness of the Sun as a source of light and the way in which its position in the sky and the shadows it casts change over the year.
