Tag Archives: Green crafts

Easiest Instruments For Young Children – Recycled Rattles

There’s a reason you find rattles in almost every culture around the globe.

They are amazingly simple and very powerful at the same time. A child playing a rattle becomes aware of how his or her movements change the sound they are making. They realize how the sound they create can “fit” with a beat and most studies of young children show that they are keenly aware of rhythmic patterns. Making and playing several varieties of homemade rattles can be a great way to explore music and have fun with a young child at the same time.

Recycled Rattles for Home or Classroom Play

Rattles made from gourds, seeds, feathers and a donkey’s jawbone

Most early rattles were made of materials such as dried gourds, seashells, clay, coconuts, bark and a variety of other natural objects. In Africa, caxixi rattles are made from woven fiber. In India, special rattles are made from colorful palm fronds woven together in clever patterns. On the coast of Peru there’s even a rattle made from the jawbone of a donkey. In short, people make instruments from materials that they have found available near their home. We are going to take that same approach to creating recycled rattles!

Clean and dry a variety of small plastic containers (water bottles, juice containers, etc.) and assemble some objects that can serve as the contents of the rattles. Here’s a list of common materials that work well and the type of sound they create:

Quiet rattles: sand, salt, sugar, confetti, cotton balls, craft puff balls, paper bits, Q-tips, tiny pasta (such as pastina or acine de pepe).

Medium Rattles: paper clips, small pebbles, birdseed, small beads, small dried beans, rice, smaller buttons.

Loud Rattles: dried macaroni/pasta, large pebbles, large beads, coins, large dried beans, larger buttons.

The Inside of the Rattle

Choose the objects you’d like to add to the rattle to create the sound and also consider including some decorative elements. Since plastic containers are transparent, you can easily add confetti, glitter, colorful ribbon, pipe-cleaners or similar items. They won’t alter the sound but they will add color, beauty and interest when the rattle is being played.

The Outside of the Rattle

If you like, you can decorate the outside of the rattle with stickers, markers or add a handle made from pipe-cleaner, yarn or ribbon. Feel free to get creative. When you’re done, it’s time to seal it with some sturdy tape, such as electrical tape. This helps keep the contents inside and generally makes it more child-safe around young music-makers.

Now you’re ready to have fun with your rattle!

Time To Play!

Shake along while you sing one of your favorite songs. Try playing slowly and shaking your rattle to the beat. Then speed up the song. Can you keep up and keep in time? Play along with recorded music. Listen to different types of music and see how your rattle fits in with the music being played.

An Easy Rattle Game For Young Children

If everyone in a class or a small group has made a rattle, you try this easy game.

Ask the children to play a certain way until the music stops. For instance, the teacher can say: “Shake your rattle softly until the music stops”. The teacher stops the recorded music (like in a game of musical chairs) at an unexpected place and sees if all the students were able to stop at the same time. Next, change the directions to other simple ways to play, such as:

Shake your rattle back and forth until the music stops.
Shake your rattle up and down until the music stops.
Shake your rattle round and round until the music stops.
Shake your rattle very softly until the music stops.
Shake your rattle loudly until the music stops.
Shake your rattle down low until the music stops.
Shake your rattle up high until the music stops.
Shake your rattle quickly until the music stops.
Shake your rattle slowly until the music stops.

Aside from this one game, there are lots of other ways you can make music and have fun with a rattle while you are learning, playing and recycling – all at the same time!

Here Are Some Variations On Rattle Crafts:

Monster Rattles – From Egg Cartons
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/HALLOWEEN-MUSICAL-RATTLE-BASED-ON-PERUVIAN-QUIJADA-1146672

Make Your Own African Coffee Can Drum – https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Make-Your-Own-African-Drum-Craft-3507618

Make Your Own Maracas – https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Latin-American-Intruments-Make-Your-Own-Maracas-142802

MYO Chapchas- Goat Toe-Nail Rattlers from South America – https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Chapchas-A-Unique-Rattle-From-Latin-America-1426778

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Posted in Babies and Music, Classroom Music, Early Learning With Music, First Instruments, Music And Community, Musical Crafts

Tagged babies and music, childrens music., children’s musical instruments, Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou, Easiest Instruments For Children, Easy Instruments kids, family fun, Green crafts, green crafts for kids, kids and music, kids music, kids musical crafts, Music for children, music for toddlers, musical crafts, Percussion Instruments, playing music with young children, young children and music

Easiest Instruments For Young Children – The Guiro!

The guiro is a perfect “first instrument” to share with young children. It’s incredibly simple and versatile at the same time. In a matter of minutes, a child can be exploring the sounds created by the guiro and making rhythms by rubbing the rasp back and forth or up and down along the surface of the guiro.

What Is A Guiro?

Although you can find similar instruments all over the world, a guiro is an instrument with Latin American roots that was originally made from wood, bone or gourds carved to have a ridged surface. In the picture above you can see a bone guiro from Mexico, a wooden version and a homemade guiro made from a recycled plastic water bottle. Some modern guiros are made of plastic or metal as well.

Play A Guiro With A Rasp

To play a guiro you rub an object across the ridges on the surface of your instrument. Older guiros often have sharp metal rasps so it can be useful to substitute more child-safe choices. Here are some fun ways to create sound on a guiro. They include hair picks, plastic spoons/forks/sporks, chopsticks, an egg whisk or an unsharpened pencil. Each will create a slightly different sound when used to play the guiro.

Make A Simple Guiro

Since it’s unlikely that you have the perfect dried gourd or an old bone lying around your house, start this musical craft in your recycling bin. Sort through the plastic bottles to see if you have one that has ridges and is sturdy enough to use in this project.

Although your plastic bottle guiro is ready to play “as is”, you can also add some decoration inside the bottle and seal it up before you begin to play. You can look for things like confetti or colorful paper shreds. Or you can choose to add objects that will make the bottle work as a rattle as well. To make a guiro that doubles as a rattle, add a small amount of any on-hand material such as bird seed, beads, pebbles or dried beans, rice or pasta.

If you’ve add anything to the inside, it’s a good idea to seal the bottle with a strong tape; such as electrical tape, so the contents will stay inside and keep the bottle from being opened when played. You might even want to attach your rasp to the guiro with some colorful ribbon or yarn as in the example here

Play Your Guiro!

You’ve probably already figured this out! The guiro is played by scraping back and forth or up and down along the ridges. You can put on some of your favorite music and let your child experiment with what sounds good to them. Or you can learn some basic rhythms together with your child. Here are some fun ways to begin.

Try playing along with a whole song by just scraping down or by just scraping up.

Try playing along with a song by scraping: down/up, down/up, down/up.

Try playing along with a song by scraping:

down/up – down/up/down…, down/up – down/up/down…

Discover the patterns that sound good to your ear or write a new song to go along with a rhythm you’ve just discovered. If you start with this simple and clever little instrument, there’s no telling how much creative musical fun you can have!

Related Links:

See, Hear and Color A Guiro Here:

http://www.dariamusic.com/guiro.php

Play Along With A Bilingual Version of La Cucaracha here:

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Posted in Early Learning With Music, Family Fun, Multicultural Music, Simple Instruments, Uncategorized

Tagged children and music, children’s musical instruments, Daria, Easiest Instruments For Children, Easy Instruments kids, Green crafts, green crafts for kids, Guiro, kids and music, kids music, kids musical crafts, Latin American instruments, Music for children, music for toddlers, musical crafts, playing music with young children, preschool music, preschool musical crafts, singing to children, toddler music, unusual percussion, world music with daria, young children and music

Make Your Own Simple Panpipes!

Have you ever blown over the top of a bottle to create a wonderful whooshing musical note?

If you have, you’ve just learned the technique for playing the panpipes or the pan flute.

Although you can find this type of instrument in many countries around the world, it is most often associated with the music from the Andes mountains of South America. The wonderful, breathy notes of the panpipes – known as zampoñas – play some of the most beautiful melodies of songs from that region.

Real panpipes are made from hollow reeds that are similar to bamboo. These long, straight reeds grow near the lakes in the mountains and are harvested and cut into individual lengths. Single reeds turn into simple flutes called quenas. Multiple reeds are bound together in different lengths to create the type of panpipes seen at the top of this page.

Can you create your own version of panpipes at home? Definitely. Here are the supplies you need:

Supplies

Straws – find the largest ones you can!

Small piece of sturdy cardboard

Transparent tape

Scissors

A small length of ribbon for decoration (optional)

This is a wonderfully easy craft!

Cut a length of sturdy cardboard. A six to eight inch piece works well for a basic set of panpipes. Next, cut different lengths of straws and attach them to the cardboard with transparent tape from longest to shortest. Make sure you leave about one inch between the straws as it allows a child’s mouth to blow on each straw individually to get a good-sounding note.

Test out your panpipes by blowing over them to see if you like the series of notes you’ve created. It can be helpful to have enough materials to try this craft several times in order to create a set of panpipes that sound great and are the perfect size for your child.

Last, you can add a bit of decoration, if you want. Cover the outer cardboard area with a bit of cloth or ribbon to give it a more festive look and tape it into place.

Here’s a quick suggestion about playing the panpipes. It can be tricky for most kids and adults to get the hang of blowing over the tops of the straws. Almost everyone wants to blow down into the straws. Remember that you can create the best notes by blowing over the tops of the straws at a ninety degree angle. You can also think of it as imitating the way the wind might rush across the tops of these reeds as they are found in nature.

Experiment with your panpipes and enjoy!

Links And Resources

Free Zampoñas Coloring Page - https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Color-the-Zamponas-Panpipes-From-The-Andes-650601

You can hear several different types of panpipes on DARIA’s new cd – Cancioncitas De Los Andes/Little Songs of the Andes.

On Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cancioncitas-los-andes-little/id602798167

On Amazon Mp3

http://amzn.com/B00BG9ABEE

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Posted in Early Learning With Music, Family Fun, Multicultural Music, Simple Instruments

Tagged Andean instruments, Andean music for kids, Cancioncitas De Los Andes, Daria, Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou, Green crafts, kids craft panpipes, kids crafts, kids musical crafts, Latin American instruments, Latin American instruments for children, musical crafts, MYO musical crafts, pan flutes, Panpipes, quena, simple instruments for children, Simple Panpipes, world music with daria, zampoñas

Simple Instruments For Toddlers – An Egg Carton Rattle

Sometimes homemade fun is the best of all!

And, if you can find all the materials you need to make a new musical toy or rattle for your child around your kitchen or craft area – all the better! In this simple instrument, you get to reuse an empty egg carton and create a funny musical face at the same time.

This simple musical craft is based on one of my favorite rattles that come from Peru. It’s called a quijada and it’s actually made from the jawbone of a donkey. You hold it in one hand and tap with the other hand or fist and the teeth rattle around in the sockets. Although the egg carton rattle has no real teeth, you can tap the side for a similar sound as well as shake it back and forth, up and down or let your child tap the top like a drum.

What do you use to fill the rattle? Practically anything that will fit in the space for the eggs. Look for 12 items that can fit into the carton just like teeth. Jingle bells sound great – they jangle as you hit them. You can also use pebbles, marbles, macaroni or bottle caps. Each one will sound a bit different when placed inside the rattle.

And, we’ve given you some fun designs to so each rattle can have a personality of it’s own. Pick silly or scary, choose a full color monster or print out the black and white version and color it on your own. Or design your own face and send us a picture. We’d love to see the wonderful things that you can do when you combine being creative, silly and musical at the same time!

Here’s the detailed instructions as a pdf, coloring pages for the faces and some other related activities and crafts:

Egg Carton Monster Rattle pdf from TeachersPayTeachers ($1.99)

(including funny faces coloring pages in black + white and color )

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/EGG-CARTON-QUIJADA-MUSICAL-RATTLE-1146672

18 free musical crafts and coloring pages: