Frequency and Wavelength

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Nikki who loved to play with her toys. One day, she was playing with her favorite toy car and noticed that the car’s wheels were spinning very fast. She wondered why the wheels were spinning so fast and asked her father.

Her father explained that the wheels were spinning fast because they were moving back and forth very quickly. This movement is called vibration.

When something vibrates, it creates something called a wave. The wave is like a ripple in a pond when you throw a stone in it.

Nikki’s father then explained that waves have two important parts: frequency and wavelength.

Frequency is how often the wave moves back and forth, while wavelength is how long it takes for the wave to complete one full cycle.

Nikki’s father showed her how to make waves in a bowl of water by tapping his finger on the side of the bowl. Nikki saw that when he tapped slowly, the waves were big and far apart. But when he tapped quickly, the waves were small and close together.

Nikki’s father then explained that when waves have a high frequency, they are close together like the small waves in the bowl of water. When waves have a low frequency, they are far apart like the big waves in the bowl of water.

Nikki was fascinated by this and decided to try it out with her toy car. She noticed that when she moved her car slowly, the wheels spun slowly and created big waves on the ground. But when she moved her car quickly, the wheels spun quickly and created small waves on the ground.

From that day on, Nikki understood what frequency and wavelength meant and had fun experimenting with different toys to see how they created different types of waves.