How to Make Homemade Sand Blocks

If you have children who are musically inclined, and want to make an orchestra where every child can play together (or by themselves), you can do it at very little cost. Perhaps you already have a rain stick. Why not add sand blocks as well? They can be rubbed together to make a nice scratching sound, or clapped together like castanets.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Two four inch long blocks of wood
• Two pieces of felt
• Two pieces of fine grained sandpaper (same size as the felt)
• Glue
• Polyurethane
• Brush
• Sandpaper of coarser grain to sand blocks

1. Find small scraps of wood that are of similar size, or cut two pieces of wood so they're both 4 inches long. A 1 x 4 works well for this purpose.

2. Sand the blocks of wood until they're smooth, and your children cannot get splinters from them.

3. Decorate the blocks on one side, or all sides. Paint them, affix stickers, whatever the child desires.

4. Coat the wood with polyurethane with a brush. After the wood dries, apply another coat of polyurethane.

5. Let the wood dry completely after applying the two coats of polyurethane.

6. Cut two pieces of felt so that they are the same size as the wood. Glue the felt onto the wood using wood glue.

7. Trim two pieces of fine grit sandpaper so they're the same size as the blocks, and glue them onto the felt.

8. Put something heavy on the blocks of wood so that the glue attaching the felt and the sandpaper hardens completely and securely.

9. Start playing and having fun.

Resources

• Make Your Own Music has a collection of homemade instruments.
• It's Easy to Make Music has sand blocks and much more.