How to Make Craft Musical Instruments for Children
Give your elementary-school-age children an engaging way to spend an afternoon by creating musical instruments out of craft supplies and recycled materials. The kids can assemble their own percussion and wind instruments with items ranging from toilet paper rolls and dried beans to metal washers and ribbon. Encourage the kids to use the handmade musical instruments to write a new song, play along with pop music idols or perform a number at a birthday party, holiday event or family gathering.
Things You'll Need
- Empty toilet paper tissue roll
- Decorative paper
- Tape
- Dried beans or rice
- Paper plates
- Stickers, markers or paints
- Hand-held hole punch
- Scissors
- Ribbon
- Tiny metal jingle bells
- Empty water bottles
- Glue stick
- Self-adhesive foam shapes, gems or buttons
- Water
- Stretch cording
- Metal washers
- Ruler
- Spoon or wood dowel
Instructions
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Make maraca-inspired kids' instruments by covering one end of an empty toilet tissue paper roll with a four-by-four-inch piece of decorative paper secured with tape. Pour two tablespoons of dried beans or rice into the roll and seal the other end with a four-by-four-inch piece of paper and tape. Let your child decorate the sides of the roll with markers and stickers.
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Let your kids decorate paper plates with stickers, markers or paints to become the base for paper tambourines. Create holes one inch apart along the edge of the plate with a hand-held hole punch. Use scissors to cut three-inch pieces of ribbon to thread through the loops on the back of tiny, metal jingle bells. Push one end of a ribbon through a hole in the paper plate and tie the two ends in a knot to attach the bell to the tambourine.
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Design wind instruments from recycled water bottles. Let your child cover the bottle labels with pieces of decorative paper affixed with a glue stick and embellish the new coverings with self-adhesive foam shapes, plastic gems or buttons. Add a different amount of water to each bottle to produce different tones when the child blows into the mouth of the bottle.
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Create tinkling jingle bell bracelets by measuring a piece of stretch cording so it's long enough to tie the ends together and slip around your child's wrist. Slip three-inch pieces of ribbon through the loops in back of metal jingle bells. Tie the ribbons and bells along the stretch cording spaced a half-inch apart.
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Produce a set of portable "chimes" by cutting six-inch-long pieces of ribbon. Push one end of the ribbon through a metal washer and tie a knot so the washer is dangling from the end of the ribbon. Tie the other end of the ribbon to a ruler and add six to seven additional washers along the ruler spaced an inch apart. Make music by softly tapping the washers with a spoon or thin wood dowel.
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Tips & Warnings
Before you toss or recycle any empty product packaging, imagine ways that the lid or container can become part of project when you craft musical instruments for kids. You can turn most objects upside down, hang them from string or tape them to other containers to generate musical sounds.
When creating musical instruments for children, ensure that the kids are past the stage of putting small objects in their mouths since objects like metal washers, beans and jingle bells will pose a choking hazard.
