Can You Guess the Bell?

Bell of King Seongdeok, South Korea, from 771: This ancient bell is made of copper, tin, lead, and zinc. Used in a Buddhist temple, it calls people together and tells the time. A wooden bell pounder strikes the outside of the bell. The sound can be heard for 40 miles!

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Bells make lovely music and have a beautiful shape. Their chimes get everyone’s attention. Before telephones, ringing bells alerted people to hazards, gatherings, or the time of day. No wonder they were placed in the middle of towns! 

Crotals. These bells are closed shapes with jingly noisemakers inside. Think jingle bells!

A few kinds of bells: 

Gongs. These are shaped like discs. They sound when struck with sticks

Regular bells. This is what you probably imagine when you think of a bell. An inside clapper strikes the sides of a cup-shaped vessel. Cowbells and church bells fall into this category.

The world has many famous bells.

Can you match each bell to the sound it makes?

Click the pictures to learn more and to check your answers.

Can you match each bell to the sound it makes?

The Liberty Bell, Pennsylvania, 1752: This big bell rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. Lawmakers heard the chime and came to meetings. The bell cracked after many decades of use. To fix the damage, metal workers made the crack wider. That was meant to keep the crack from spreading.

Big Ben, England, 1859: Big Big Ben is the nickname for a famous clock tower in London. Its official name is Elizabeth Tower. The clock’s bells have rung out the time for more than 150 years—though they took a few breaks for repairs. Big Ben is indeed big—each dial is almost 23 feet in diameter. Its hour hands measure nearly nine feet long. The minute hands measure nearly 14 feet. The tower holds five bells. The largest bell is also called Big Ben. It rings out an E note.