We’ll say it — this winter has been nasty. It feels like there’s hardly anything left to do except wait for spring to finally arrive. While you’re dreaming of sunnier days and warm afternoons by the lake, our preschool and child care center has a number of crafts and activities for your young ones to enjoy at home.
After all, we don’t want to wish away the time that we’re currently in (though it’s pretty hard not to when you’re experiencing a Minnesotan winter in March). These musical craft ideas will help your child (and you!) have fun while you’re cooped up inside from the cold by combining art and music. Try these activities out, and contact Yellow Brick Road Early Childhood Development Center to tour one of our schools in Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Maple Grove, and Plymouth!
Musical Madness
Making your own instruments is a fabulous activity for your preschooler to partake in. It’s creative, it requires imagination and innovation, and it also works on rhythm and music skills — all of which are excellent to have and practice. Here are a couple instruments you can try making, though for children under the age of 4, you should be wary of some materials that could be choking hazards.
Drums
Take bowls and pots of different sizes, and cover them tightly with different materials (using a rubber band is helpful). Wax paper, thin cloth (like a scrap from a bedsheet), or paper are some examples, though you can always encourage your preschooler to think of other thin materials that could work.
If it’s paper on the top or a scrap of cloth, your child can decorate their drum cover with coloring materials. There are also some great videos on YouTube about drumming and drum art that you can watch with your child first, which also helps build context and gets them excited about the activity.
Shakers
Save those toilet paper and paper towel rolls! You and your child can decorate these with markers, glitter, puffballs, or anything else you can think of. Next, think of some materials that could fill them to make a great shaking noise — dry beans or rice work great, but you could also try some coins too. Cover one section with a similar material to the drums, allow your child to help fill them (ideally they should be filled about a third of the way), and then cover the other end.
Some things to talk about with your child: What happens to the sound if the tube is filled all the way up? What if there’s only three beans in the entire shaker? Which materials make the sound higher? Which shaker makes the lowest sound? All of these questions add on an academic and reflective layer. You get into the science of music while helping your child grow in their musical intelligence, and they’ll also work on their fine motor skills by decorating their shaker. This activity is instrumental to your child’s growth.
Guitar
A guitar is pretty simple to make — all you need is an empty Kleenex box or a few different sizes of Tupperware containers and some rubber bands! Try using rubber bands of different thicknesses to get different sounds, and if you do different containers with one or two rubber bands, have your child sort the “guitars” from lowest to highest sounds (as best as they can).