Representations

Representations provide powerful ways for children to express their understandings using language, pictures and symbols. Exploring how objects can be represented gives children new insights into how others’ view the world and communicate these views. In the ELSA Representations app, children engage with STEM Practices while making musical instruments, playing music in a band, creating and recording sounds for their musical instruments, and helping choose the right clothes to match the weather.

The Representations app features 4 activities: Let’s Make Musical Instruments (decoding), Let’s Play In A Band (encoding), Let’s Dress For Our Celebration (conditionals) and Let’s Make Sounds (debugging).

Let’s Make Musical Instruments

In Let’s make musical instruments, children are required to interact with a range of pictorial and symbolic instructions to create three different musical instruments. Once the children have created their instruments, the instruments will animate and play a tune.

In Let’s make musical instruments, children will find a range of components on a tabletop they can use to make instruments. They need to ‘drag and drop’ these components in the correct order. When they complete a step correctly, the piece will lock into place.

Once a musical instrument is fully built, the activity transitions to a screen where children can play it. Symbolic representations of the tunes and sound modifiers will also appear. Sound modifiers can also be attached and detached from the different tunes by dragging and dropping their symbol into the circle above the instrument.

Let’s Play In A Band

In Let’s play in a band, children will encode one bar of music for three different musical instruments (guitar, drums and marimba).

Instruments are encoded one at a time, with each having three sounds and three modifiers (louder, softer, double-time).

Symbolic representations appear at the bottom of the screen and can be dragged into the bar. The instrument will play back these sounds in a loop so that children can listen to, and edit, their compositions along the way.

Once all of the instruments have been encoded, children can listen to them play in harmony.

Let’s Dress For Our Celebration

When playing Let’s dress for our celebration, children will see the weather outside through the window. It can be warm and sunny or cold and wet.

Children then ‘drag and drop’ appropriate clothes onto Remy so that he is comfortably dressed.

Once dressed, Remy will head outside and react to the conditions. For example, if Remy is wearing a hat and other suitable clothes for a sunny day, he will appear happy. Whereas, if Remy is wearing a jumper and long pants he will appear unhappy. In this way, children learn about the consequences of their decisions.

If Remy looks uncomfortable, children can return to the clothing screen to dress him again.

Let’s Make Sounds

Let’s make sounds is an activity where children create and then record sounds for their own musical instruments!

Firstly, children can locate or make musical instruments (in the real world).

Secondly, they will use the camera on the tablet to capture a picture (photograph or drawing) to represent their instrument.

Thirdly, they will record three, one-to-two second tunes that they make with their instrument.

Once completed, the last four instruments created will be available to use in activity two, Let’s play in a band.