The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

My wife and I volunteer at a nearby elementary school and as retired teachers, understand that any help in the classroom will assist with the educational process. I am helping with a small inquiry lesson with the fifth grade students that has been going on this week and will conclude on February 11 (Thomas Edison's Birthday) with a demonstration of a cylinder phonograph.

At the beginning of the week, I brought a Blue Amberol cylinder record (without the box) to class. The teacher had me walk around the class with it and on a sheet of paper, students wrote answers to questions posed on the board. Each day, a small additional fact is added to go with the questions. (So far, few students have figured out what it is or how it is used.) Here are the questions:

1. How old do you think this object is?
2. What is its purpose and how would it be used?
3. Does it have any value?
4. What is it made of?
5. Where would you find it being used?

On February 11, two records will be played, a worksheet will be completed, and hopefully these children will understand more about this wonderful invention. If you have a similar opportunity, it might be interesting to share the hobby in this way. There have been a few others the forum who have shared their phonographs with school groups, and this is a great way to teach history.

This is what everybody should be doing with there collections. If it is a nice day, I take my phonographs outside and play them, I take them to a few fairs around the area and make cylinders, and show Edison inventions. Very good indeed.

...technical difficulties...

EdiBrunsVic, great questions and progression to the big day. What to you intend to play for them? They should be impressed that no electricity is involved. I wonder if any of the kids will think that some kind of Wi-Fi is involved.

I compiled this program, but have only presented it once. It was for an elder community and it was received very well. Your post may have stimulated me to give it a go, again.

Here is what I put together. I hope there are not any glaring errors.

Thank you for posting the program. Thank you also to Edisonphonoworks for the response. My lesson will be more basic, but you have given me a few ideas. Since I have just a few cylinder records, the selection will be one instrumental and one vocal type.

Since the first post, the teacher has been interested in the wide variety of student responses as the cylinder record is further examined. It will be interesting to see the reactions when the phonograph is demonstrated on February 11.

I just graduated college for elementary education, so I have not had a chance to do this in an elementary school yet. I have used them twice in college though. Once to demonstrate how early music was played in a home (actually, I used a Victrola VV-VIIIa for that, as I did not own the Edison at that time), the other time was part of a display about Thomas Edison I did for one of my education classes. Rather than messing with cylinders for a biography of the phonograph, I put a microphone in the bottom of the horn, and read the script into the horn, recording it with the microphone. Then when I set up the display, I played the recording on my iPod, putting the earbud into the rubber tube on the horn, allowing it to look like it was actually playing to a casual observer. Of course after it played a few times, I did play a few cylinders for my classmates. I got quite a crowd for that. Of course, me taking my shoe off to steal a sock because it got too loud was amusing for my classmates as well.