Supplies and drums...

I haven't been able to spend a ton of time on this project lately because school has been really busy. However, I've thought about it a little bit every day, deciding which ones to make, making supply lists and coercing friends into helping me. I spent about an hour and a half today buying supplies and getting things ready for making instruments on the weekend.

I have the stuff for rhythm sticks, drums (except containers), and rainsticks. I also have a group of friends that want to make stuff! I'm finding it super helpful to work with others, because it's another perspective on which way is best.

Drums: I've also been looking online for the past week trying to find an inexpensive way to make drums, because they're so much fun. I don't know why I had so much trouble finding one, but wikihow had a fairly cheap version. We'll see how well it works this week!

Wealth of Ideas!

I found an amazing website that has not only a wealth of ideas of instruments to make, but songs and activities to go along with them. I'm really excited that I found this, because it's given me some good ideas for this project.

Egg shaker: This website had a link to songs to use with the instruments, and I found an excellent one to use with the egg shakers. It will help students learn the body parts, while playing a musical instrument. If we were to do this craft shortly after Easter, I doubt I would have trouble getting donations of plastic eggs. A link to the song can be found here. (http://www.nancymusic.com/PRINThomemade2.htm )

Hoop Drum: excellent tool of introducing Aboriginal Culture into the classroom!

Tambourine: like the hoop drum, this would be an excellent tool to introduce another culture to the classroom.

Sand Blocks: This project would be fairly easy to do with K-2 classes but I'm not sure where I'd get the wood from. Perhaps a parent donation?

More Ideas

The more I look into crafts, the more excited I get about this project. I made maracas with classmates that are also making musical instruments. As we were making the crafts, we helped each other out a lot, and it was interesting to take a step back to notice the different teaching methods used. I found myself gaining more confidence as well, offering to help if someone needed it. There is a more detailed explanation of how the day went in an earlier entry.

But here are a bunch more crafts I found today:

Symbols: more simple craft, would be good to use in a kindergarten or grade one class.

Harmonica: I had no idea you could make a home made harmonica! It would probably be too expensive, but I'd like to look into it because I used to love playing the harmonica.

Pan flute: definitely need parent support for this one!

Making Maracas and Egg Shakers

3 fellow students and I got together today to make maracas and an egg shaker. I learned a lot about what I would and would not do in my class, and had fun doing it! Ittook us 3 hours to set up, do the craft, and clean up, which was a lot longer than I expected it to be. However, part of that was just figuring out the kinks. As we went along, we kept a list of things to remember when doing this with our class. Here are the important ones:

• cut strips of paper in a curve line. It helps to keep the papers straight on the balloon
• it's easiest to put the popcorn kernels/beans in with a partner, funnel, and steady hand!
• aprons - necessary evil if you want to protect your clothes
• keep the flour/water mixture hot and use lots of water. If it gets too thick or chunky, it takes longer to dry
• only do 1 or 2 layers at a time, otherwise it will be too weak
• if you don't allow the plaster to dry completely before painting, it may grow mold.
• have sheets with students names on them somewhere in the class before class starts so students have a way of telling which one is theirs
• don't put balloons with popcorn kernels in the oven so the paper mache dries quicker. Just think about it for a second
• be prepared for the student that takes an hour to finish, and the student that will take 5 minutes. Have more activities planned!
• the more hands cleaning, the better!

All in all, I think this is a great craft and I'd love to use it in my classroom. It's fairly cheap as many supplies can be brought from everyday supplies at home. It'd be interesting to see what other PLOs you could work into this kind of craft. Definitely worth looking into!

Week One

Just typing in "instruments to make in a classroom" into google has given me a ton of results! I didn't realize there were so many excellent projects out there. A lot of the ones I found I don't think would be appropriate however, as the supply list would be too expensive. The following three are my ones I could see myself making with students:

Maracas : I remember using these in my school, they were always my favourite instrument! It's mostly made out of things you have a home, old newspaper, flour, toilet paper rolls and then just decorative supplies.

Rainstick: This would be fun to use during a unit on weather! If I were to use them in my class, however, I'd make sure to put the nails in the tube before bringing them to the class.

Rhythm Sticks: I have a large package of old beads that I used to make beaded bracelets with, so this craft would be fun and inexpensive. They also apparently sound like crickets, so it could be used in a unit on bugs.

Introduction

Welcome to my musical instruments blog! As part of an assignment for school, I need to expand my musical knowledge. In this blog, I will compile a large list of homemade musical instruments and then chose the 5-7 instruments that I want to make. If you have randomly stumbled over this blog and want to know more, please email me at sbowles@uvic.ca