Topic of the Set of Activities: The Cassette Recorder

References to the Didactical-Methodical Planning of the Set of Activities

Children have a natural interest in the technical phenomena which surround them. In everyday life they handle many electrical devices and electronic toys without understanding their technical functions. They play with magnets, which possess mysterious forces for them: they can attract and repel objects - by magic! They see that electricity produces light and assume that the socket is the never ending source of this marvelous phenomenon. Frequently children also try to get to the bottom of things by asking questions and by examining electrical devices, taking them apart and looking at their components.

The following set of activities takes the children’s natural curiosity as a starting point. Our aim is to de-mystify seemingly marvellous mechanisms and to make them accessible for children. This set uses a medium which is still popular with children. In early infancy the majority of children already possess a handy, convenient, and colourful cassette recorder which usually accompanies the children everywhere and which is equally suitable for recording and listening.

The individual activities set up is based on children’s natural curiosity. In conveying physical-technical contents one point of crucial importance is to make children learn holistically by appealing to all their senses. Exploring-discovering learning is the fundamental

didactical principle. By trying, acting, experimenting and using, the children shall not only get to know the medium cassette recorder from a technical perspective, but the physical bases (such as sound, magnetism, electromagnetism and electricity) shall also become understandable for the children by experiencing them in a concrete way.

The set of activies is conceived for children of 5 years or older. For younger children the individual activities would have to be even more didactically reduced. The individual units of the set (sound, magnetism, electromagnetism, loudspeaker, cassette recorder, electricity) can also be worked on in other contexts or in another order: Here the individual situation and the respective interest of the specific group of children should be considered and used as a starting point for individual plans. The experiments and materials can be varied and repeated in free play.

Overview of the set of activities:

Activity1: Hear, produce and feel tones / noises

Activity 2:Sound can be bundled

Activity 3: A tone / sound is a wave! Sound can be made visible, sound can make objects move!

Activity 4: Magnetic and non-magnetic materials

Activity 5: The earth is a large magnet - magnets repel and attract each other

Activity 6: Building a compass

Activity 7: Magnetism penetrates materials

Activity 8: Flowing electricity: Set up an electric circuit run with the help of a battery

Activity 9: Electricity can magnetize objects made of metal: Building an electromagnet

Activity 10: Examination of a loudspeaker: How does it look and what does it consist of?

Activity 11: Examination: How does a cassette recorder work?

 

Download of the activity-set: cassette.zip

Contact:

Richard-von-Weizsäcker-Berufskolleg, Lüdinghausen/Germany

Rvw-bk-lh@kreis-coesfeld.de