Make Music by Making an Instrument

Photo by: Cienpies Design

In a previous post, I talked about the importance of just having musical instruments available in the house for your child to experiment with.  In case you missed it, be sure to check it out here, but today I thought I would give you a recipe for making your own instrument at home.  This can be a great craft for preschoolers & elementary students especially on rainy days or too hot days (which we have had a lot of here in Oklahoma lately) – you’ll find some options for other ways to get creative with it at the bottom of the post.  For now, this is a simple shaker recipe that you can make in just a few minutes!

Simple Shaker

What You Need:

Cardboard Tube (paper towels or toilet paper rolls work well)
Beans, Rice, Pasta or a combination of them
2 cupcake wrappers
2 rubber bands
Wrapping Paper (to cover the tube)
Glue dots, glue stick, or tape

What To Do:

Measure the height of your tube as well as around the circumference.  Then cut your wrapping paper to about 1/2 inch longer than the height of the tube.  This will give us some overlap.

Starting on one side, place your glue on your tube (or tape onto the paper) and slowly roll the paper around the tube, checking to be sure the edges are aligned with the top of the tube.

When you reach the end, seal the edge with more glue or another piece of tape to secure the loose end.

Cover one end of the tube with a cupcake wrapper & use the rubber band to hold it in place.

Fill your tube about 1/4 to 1/2 full with your beans, rice, pasta…or whatever else you can think of!  Experiment with different combinations of items – each will have a unique sound.

Place the other cupcake wrapper over the open end and secure with the rubber band.

Get shakin’!

Other Options:

• Use markers, paints, crayons, foamies…whatever craft items you have on had to decorate the outside of the tube before you fill it.  Be sure the tube is dry before adding the beans.
• Jingle bells, bottle caps, & beads also make great sounds inside your shaker.  Or hit the pantry and grab some cereal.  If it’s small & loose, it will work!  (Just be sure to choose items that will be safe for the age of your little one!)
• No paper towel tubes?  The plastic easter eggs will work, as will soup cans, plastic soda or even salad dressing bottles!  Head out to the recycle bin and see what you can find!

Singing About The DVD Cord

Illustration By: Robert Proksa

Do you sing to your children around the house?  If not, why not?  You don’t have to know any “good songs” or be worthy of a recording contract.  Just the other day I was helping my kids find the cord for our portable DVD player.   While I was searching, I began singing (to no particular tune) about what I was doing.   And do you know what my kids did?  They sang back.

That’s right – no one told them to do it, no one announced that it was now time to talk in song, they just did it.  Because that’s what kids do, they mimic our actions (sometimes more than we would like them to!).  And they are always up for a game.  Do your kids grumble when it’s time to pick up?   Mine do. So I often will start picking up toys & sing the “Messy Mess” song from JoJo’s Circus (depending upon the age of your child, your mileage may vary here).  My kids can’t resist singing the song so they join in & they can’t sing without picking up!  It makes clean up time go so much faster & we have some fun in the process.   For older kids, let them turn on their music to make the time fly by.  You can even have them make a play list just for cleaning time (or getting ready for school, walking the dog, whatever task they are doing).  When the play list is over, their time is up.  And you’ll be amazed at how quickly those jobs get done!

The next time you are doing a menial task, like looking for the DVD player cord, turn it into a musical event!  Make up the words, make up the tune & engage your children in a small moment of music around the house!

A Music Themed Wallpaper for Your Desktop or Phone

There are several great music themed desktop or phone wallpapers available right now from VladStudio.com.   This very talented artist has a bunch of great backgrounds, but I’ve chosen to start dressing up my iPhone with “The Pianist” which features a cute striped octopus at his underwater piano.  I just love the colors in this … & the octopus’s curly tentacles.

Each week, I’ll be linking to a new music themed wallpaper from around the web so if you want to be notified of a new find, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed.

How A Coloring Page Can Help Your Child Practice

Photo By: Jeff Prieb

As my students know, I’m not big on practicing for a set of amount of time. As  a young piano student, I was supposed to practice 30 minutes a day, so you know what I did?  I plopped the clock down on the piano, and sat there playing each song one time.  That took about 5 minutes – what was I supposed to do with the other 25?  Practicing was foreign to me.

Now that I am the teacher, instead of teaching my students to practice watching a clock, I teach them to work on goals.  We pick a goal for each practice and then, once it’s met, we’re done or we move on to the next goal, always being sure to play those pieces we have already worked on each day.   Having a daily goal gives kids something tangible to work for on an instrument that truly takes years to master.

To help keep track of our goals, I sometimes use a coloring page.  Various tasks are written into the page, and as the student completes each goal, the page gets colored in.  The overall task is to be sure that the whole page (and therefore, the entire lesson) is colored in before the next time we meet.  It’s a nice visual cue to remember to practice!

If your student is having trouble getting their pieces learned each week, try printing out a coloring page & helping them divide their practice into daily goals, such as “On piece number 1, I am going to work on getting the correct fingerings”.  Each section of the coloring page represents one goal.  Then help them determine how many sections need to be completed each day in order to be finished by the next lesson.  Once they have a practice plan, their time at the keyboard really flies & is way more productive!

Here’s a great simple music coloring page that you can use to help your child set goals for their practice this week.  Happy practicing!

Growing a Mind Through Music: Spatial-Temporal Reasoning

Photo by: Billy Alexander

I’m sure you’ve heard all the research about how studying music improves brain functions. Many scientists have studied the effects of music on the brain with some fascinating results.  Once such study took a look at spatial-temporal reasoning in children.  What is spatial-temporal reasoning & why do you care if your child improves it?  Two words: Math & Science.

Researchers found that children given piano lessons significantly improved in their spatial- temporal IQ scores (important for some types of mathematical reasoning) compared to children who received computer lessons, casual singing, or no lessons.

— Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., Levine, L.J., Wright, E.L., Dennis, W.R., and Newcomb, R. (1997) Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 1-8.

Spatial-Temporal reasoning is, at it’s most basic, your brain’s ability to take objects & mentally manipulate them over a period of time.  Doing puzzles works your spatial-temporal reasoning.  Your child sees a piece and mentally rotates it to decide if it’s the one they need.  They can tell, simply by looking at it, whether or not it’s the one that will fit.  This would appear to be a non-musical brain task, and yet, those children who took lessons on the piano showed improvement.  Another sign that music works a significant part of the brain – not just the parts we would assume are for music.

Give your child a leg up.  Let them play music.  Grow their minds.