Tag Archives: holiday crafts

Get This Jingle Bell Craft Book – Free!

jingle craft book cover

When the winter holidays roll around, who doesn’t love the sound of jingle bells? And those great little jingling bells can be used to make a multitude of creative sensory crafts for kids. Because they are such a great winter activity, we’ve assembled our top 4 jingle bells crafts into a handy E-Book perfect for this time of year.

Here’s What’s In The E-Book

Jingle Bracelet (from booklet)So what were our top 4 crafts?

Number one was our easy jingle bracelets or anklets using yarn or pipe cleaners and beautiful bells. (I’ve heard back from parents who’ve enclosed these with their holiday cards!). Number two was “jingle pencils”, super easy to make with on-hand materials and perfect for large groups – then using for a holiday sing or caroling fun!

Number 3 was a jingle tube craft using any round container like a coffee can or an oatmeal package. These are sturdy and beautiful and you’ll want to use them Jingle Tubesas part of your home music basket or music therapy lessons for months to come. Lastly, our favorite totally green holiday craft reuses both the cardboard tubes for wrapping paper and left-over wrapping materials to make your own jingle marching sticks.

Sound like fun?

Here’s How To Get It

To get this E-book, just send me an e-mail at daria music at yahoo dot com. Make the subject “Free Jingle Bell Book”.  I’ll send a return e-mail with the jingle bells - different colorsE-book and ask you if you would share the link for my TPT store (which is filled with freebies) or share on social media or maybe even do a review on your blog! No worries here, do as much or as little as you like!

Will I check up on this? No. I meet the nicest folks through my blog and my music materials. They are parents, teachers, homeschoolers, music therapists and they love making music a part of their children and family’s day. If you enjoy what I create, I’d appreciate any sort of shout out because that’s precisely how I find the most awesome new friends and fans!

Would You Kindly Follow Me On TPT?

If you follow me on my TPT store, you’ll get first notice of all my music, world TPT headermusic and world cultures fun. There’s even a special section listing over 50 freebies. I’d love to stay connected with you!

Follow me on TPT here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Sellers-Im-Following/Add/World-Music-With-Daria

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4 Recycled Thanksgiving Music Crafts!

Daria's homemade gongRecycle, Upcycle – Repurpose!

Isn’t it great to find ways to use items that might be a part of your holiday celebration.  Instead of tossing them into the trash, you can turn  them into treasure.   Well, maybe not treasure, but definitely great kids music crafts that can provide hours of fun while you’re relaxing during or after a wonderful celebration.

Here’s our 4 fav holiday craft re-makes.

Turkey Roasting Pan into A Gong

Seriously, is there a better way to get the whole group together than to bang a gong? Let the kids use the extra turkey roasting pan to create this wonderful Chinese-style gong to mark time at your celebration.  Decorate it with your Chinese zodiac animals – the chart of Chinese Zodiac animals is part of this pdf – or just apply pure creativity!

DARIA’s Chinese Gong Freebie on TPThttps://buff.ly/2mTkrU4

Ocean drum completePie Box Ocean Drum

We love this craft. There’s a cool little window built right in so you can see what’s making the sound of the sea in your ocean drum. This simple craft sounds remarkable and is wonderfully relaxing!

DARIA’s Ocean Drum Craft Posthttps://buff.ly/2zZPGCm

Turn Your Coffee Can into An Africa Style Drum

Screen shot 2014-02-06 at 12.05.42 PMWho doesn’t love a hand drum? Here’s a super simple way to turn the empty coffee cans into a child-size hand drum.

Coffee Can Hand Drum From DARIA’s Website (Look Under African Drum) http://www.dariamusic.com/crafts.php

pencil beater on drumA Beater For Those Drums!

While you’ve got a gong and a hand drum, you might want to make your own easy beaters. Opt for unsharpened pencils or go for a nature walk and find sticks that can create sturdy basic beaters for any drum you may have or make.

DARIA’s Easy Drum Beaters Posthttps://buff.ly/2hbREba

 

Make-Your-Own Confetti For Kids!

big-bottle-shaker-w-confettiConfetti!  Who doesn’t love it?

Although it can be messy, it’s a fun part of so many celebrations.  And we often add it to many of our recycled rattle projects to add color and a bit of extra merriment.

So what’s better then colorful confetti? Answer: recycling holiday wrapping to create your own endless supply of fun…con…fetti!  Here are three ways to make different kinds of confetti from extra holiday wrapping supplies.  Naturally, if working with younger kids, be aware of safety issues with scissors and substitute kid shears.  If working with very young children, you may want to make confetti in advance then allow them to choose or pour confetti through a large-mouthed funnel into your holiday rattles or crafts.

So don’t throw out that holiday packaging! Here’s how to make it part of your next celebration.

Hole Punch Confetti

hole-punch-confettiThis is clearly the easiest method and makes perfect little circles.  Just cut squares of used wrapping paper (the brighter, the better) and put several together before you start punching. You’ll easily find how many paper squares you can put together to get the most amount of confetti without straining your hand and your hole punch.

Other fun hole punches? Craft stores often have hole punches with different shapes and sizes, like stars and moons.  These make for wonderful additions to this project!

Cut Across Confetti

cut-across-confettiCut squares of used tissue paper or wrapping paper and put about 4 – 6 together.  Tape one side to keep the papers together.  Then make long scissors cuts up toward the taped side, but not into the taped area. Once you’ve made these long vertical cuts, you can cut straight across (in the opposite direction) and it will yield nice little uneven squares of confetti.

Snip-A-Ribbon Confetti

Have lots of used ribbon? This method yields a bit less confetti, but still makes snip-a-ribbon-confetticolorful little squares.  Simply hold 4 – 6 pieces of ribbon in your hand and snip across the top.  You can also cut longer pieces and make mock shredded paper.  Similarly you can curl ribbon and then cut the longer curls to add into your rattles.

Then, What?

By far, the two most popular confetti crafts are rattles and confetti poppers.  We have our rattle post below plus two different creative methods for MYO poppers (aka confetti cannons) in the links below.

Here’s wishing you a happy and joyful celebration!

Make Your Own New Year’s Eve Noise-Makers! http://www.tinytappingtoes.com/family-fun-2/make-your-own-new-years-eve-noise-makers/

Confetti Poppers From Push Pop Containers
http://www.thesitsgirls.com/diy/confetti-poppers/

Balloon Confetti Poppers From Adventures In Wunderland
http://adventuresinwunderland.com/balloon-confetti-poppers-new-years-eve-craft/

Jingle Tubes For The Holidays or Any Day!

jingle tubes 2These are so much fun, why wait for the holidays to make some?
To make jingle tubes, start with these “found around the house” supplies. You’ll need either the inner cardboard roll from paper towels or a round container, such as an oatmeal, cornmeal container or a coffee can. You’ll also need a piece of felt large enough to fit around your tube. Plus, look for a bit of glue, a marker, safety pins and jingles and some colorful tape, if desired.

Step 1 – Measure and cut a piece of colorful felt that will cover the cardboard paper towel roll or round container and leave a slight area for overlap.
Step 2 – Determine where you want the jingles on the finished stick and use your marker to make small indications showing you where jingles will be pinned in place.
Step 3 – Pin each jingle with a safety pin on the inside part of the felt. Hold it up to the cardboard tube or container to check your work.
Step 4 – If using a cardboard tube, glue the edges where the felt overlaps and staple the ends in place.
Step 5 – If using an “oatmeal style” container, check the position of the jingles then glue the entire felt piece into play and allow the jingle tube to dry before using.
Step 6 - For both projects, you might also wish to secure the felt in place with an additional piece of electrical tape.
Some Fun Ways To Play
Shake jingle tube back and forth or up and down.

Sing any of your favorite holiday songs along to a beat created by your jingle tube.

Try one of your favorite songs slowly. Try it quickly, keeping the beat with the jingle tube.

Play jingle tubes along with recorded music.

Make jingle tubes or color coordinated jingle tubes as part of any holiday music presentation.
Resources
Four Jingle Bell Crafts E-book from TeachersPayTeachers http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/4-JINGLE-BELLS-CRAFT-ACTIVITIES-940926

Jingle Marching Sticks

making jingle sticksOne of the most wonderful things about making music with young children is that it easily becomes part of an active day.  Who can resist making a parade or dancing around the house or the classroom when they are carrying a marching jingle stick?  Best of all, the materials needed for this craft are often trashed (extra ribbon, tape, cardboard wrapping tubes, stray jingle bells) so this craft encourages you to upcycle, exercise and make music all at the same time.  What a great way to begin the holiday fun!

Make Your Own Jingle Stick

Here are the supplies to assemble:

A jingle stick – look for a cardboard tube from wrapping paper, 3 foot ruler or large stick

1 (or more) pipecleaners

6 – 10 jingles per pipecleaner

Colorful electrical tape or duct tape

Optional: Paint, stickers, yarn or duct tape, for decoration.

Screen shot 2013-11-15 at 3.05.34 PMBegin by stringing any number of jingles onto a pipecleaner.  Use electrical tape to fasten the pipecleaner into place on the stick.  It helps to fasten the pipecleaners to the stick between the jingles as well.  If you like, make several pipecleaners strung with bells to add to different parts of your stick.

Once the jingles are in place, decorate the rest of the marching stick.  Use paint, more tape, colorful ribbon, yarn or stickers to make it unique and wonderful.

Time To Play!

Other then using the jingle stick to lead a parade, there are lots of ways to get creative with your new instrument.

Sing any of your favorite holiday songs along to a beat created by your marching jingle stick.

Try tapping the stick on the floor while marching and use that sound as part of the rhythm being created.

Use marching jingle sticks as part of a holiday music presentation.

Try playing the jingle stick at a particular part of the song (like the chorus) or when you hear a particular word in a holiday song.  For instance, a class can jingle the bells only when you hear the word “jingle” in the song “jingle bells”.

If you like, try it along to this version of Jingle Bells which shares lots of different ways to say “Happy Holidays” in different countries around the globe.

Resources

Jingle Anklets –  http://www.dariamusic.com/docs/jinglebells.pdf

4 Easy Jingle Bells Instruments For Holiday Fun  – Craft Booklet from TeachersPayTeachers http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/4-JINGLE-BELLS-CRAFT-ACTIVITIES-940926

4 Easy Jingle Bells Instruments For Holiday Fun  – Craft Booklet from DARIA’s Little Village Store http://dariasvillagestore.storenvy.com/collections/34585-all-products/products/3498803-4-jingle-bell-craft-activities-booklet