WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Sound mapping

This time of year, this time of the day, it's so nice to just sit outside and listen! Naturalist Bridget Butler tells us that will build on some of our naturalist skills and there are some games you can play with your kids, to help them listen a bit better when they are outside!

"So this one's really simple, you're going to close your eyes, and start with two fists, and we're just going to hold our fingers up each time we hear a new sound. So it's not important to know what the sounds are, its just important to kind of distinguish between different types of sounds.

And then after you get done? You can sit and count how many sounds you heard, and compare what you hear with each other."

"So who heard what."

"Right. Another one that is a little more advanced that's great to play with older kids, is something called sound mapping. Pick a spot in the woods, or by a pond, or anywhere outdoors to sit, and with a pencil and a piece of paper, you're going to make a map of the sounds that you hear around you.

Again, it's not important to know what the sounds are, we're just going to draw little symbols that kind of represent that sound, and make a map of where we hear that sound around us."

"So X marks the spot where we are."

"Right. I hear red winged blackbirds, sort of at 1 o'clock."

"And I hear waves. I'm going to put that right about 5 o'clock."

"A chickadee at about 7..."

"And the wind in the trees, it kind of above you!"

"everywhere!"

"So wind symbols all around!"

"It's a really simple activity you can do outside, and the point is to just kind of tune your ears in to all of the different sounds that we're hearing, and maybe we can go back and figure out what each of those sounds are."