I love making homemade musical instruments. We did this over the summer and loved it. It is really fun for the kids to play with when they finish. Daniel loved it and hadn't even turned two.
Kazoo (for older children)-
You will need a cardboard roll (go ahead and unroll your entire paper towel roll because you waited until the last minute and don't have an empty one on hand), wax paper, rubber bands, crayons, markers, stickers or paint, paperhold punch or scissors.
1. Decorate the cardboard roll using your desired decorations.
2. Have an adult punch out or poke several holes in one end of the roll
3. Cover that end and the holes with wax paper held on tightly with a rubber band.
4. Hum into the open end of the roll with fingers placed lightly on the wax paper. Put your finger over one or several of the holes. Experiment with covering and uncovering holes as you hum.
Drum (great for little ones)-
You will need a coffee can with the plastic lid, construction paper, crayons, markers or paint, tape and scissors. (You can see where we are going with this right?)
1. Cut the construction paper to fit around the coffee can.
2. Decorate the paper
3. Replace the plastic lid and decorate.
4. Beat rhythms on the lid with your hands (or a handy wooden spoon if you would rather.)
Tambourine (great for older kids who need help with their fine motor skills)-
You will need two 9" paper plates, crayons, felt tip pens, watercolors, paints, anything to make noise (jingle bells, rice, shelled corn, small pebbles, plastic beads, dried beans or peas), yarn, narrow ribbon or pipe cleaners, glue and a paper hole punch.
1. Color or paint the bottoms of the plates. Let them dry completely. This is the advantage of NOT painting if you have little kids. Mine definitely don't want to wait.
2. Punch holes about 2 inches apart around the rims. Then, tie a jingle bell at each hole with a length of yarn.
3. Place a handful of rice (or corn, pebbles, beads, beans or peas) onto one plate.
4. Glue the paper plates together, rim to rim, with the eating surfaces facing each other.
5. Hold the rims tightly and shake or tap the tambourine.Note: I also staple the plates as secondary security. You also could decorate the plates with streamers if you desired.
Adaptation to the tamborine. Decorate the paper plates, fill with bells, staple shut. This works well for little ones.
Note: take into account that whatever goes into these art projects will very likely end up outside of the projects and on your floor. With this knowledge please don't put things like nails inside the shakers. At this moment you are thinking "Isn't this an obvious comment" but since my kids actually came home from school once with a shaker filled with nails this apparently is NOT such an obvious comment.
Box Guitar-
You will need a shoebox (no lid), rubber bands (preferably of varying widths), paint, paintbrushes with stiff bristles, paper towel roll, glue, scissors.
1.) Paint the paper towel roll and entire shoebox, a few sides at a time, with a dark brown color. Let it dry.
2.) Without getting your paintbrush wet, paint over the dark brown with lighter brown paint. This makes it look like wood. Let it dryNote- of course if they desire they could decorate it any way they want.
3.) Glue the paper towel roll to a short end of the shoebox.
4.) Stretch the rubber bands around the open shoebox. Space them out evenly from the widest to the most narrow.
5.) Experiment by plucking the strings
