How to Make Preschool Musical Instruments From Soda Bottles

A glass soda bottle can be turned into two instruments in one.

Incorporating music into your preschool classroom can add a fun element to lessons, and creating your own unique instruments can save money as well. For an even better hands-on learning experience, allow the children to help create the musical instruments. Using old glass soda bottles, you can make an instrument that can be played with spoons or blown into like a wind instrument to create melodies. With just a few simple steps you can fashion two instruments in one or multiple instruments for the children to play.

Things You'll Need

• Glass soda bottles
• Water
• Liquid dish soap
• Metal spoons

Instructions

1. Remove the labels from the soda bottles and clean the bottles thoroughly with liquid dish soap to remove any soda residue.

2. Line up the bottles from smallest to largest if they are not all the same size. The smallest bottle should be on the right end and the largest on the left.

3. Add a small amount of water to the right-most bottle, add a little more water to the second, and continue adding a little more water to each bottle. The left-most bottle should contain the most liquid while the right-most bottle should contain the least.

4. Tap each bottle with a metal spoon to test its pitch. If you have a good ear for pitch, you can compare the pitch to musical pitches on a piano or other instrument and adjust the amount of water in the bottles to tune the pitch. Otherwise, experiment with different water levels to make different pitches until you find some that sound good to you.

5. Blow sideways across the top of each bottle and note the difference in pitch between each bottle. Split up the bottles and have some students blow and some tap with spoons or create multiple instruments.

References

• Playdation.com: Craft a Kids' Band with Soda Bottle Instruments
• Phil Tulga: Water Bottle Xylophone