Make Your Own Musical Instruments for Toddlers
I guess my son must have had at least a few rattles or wobbly noise sources in his infancy and infancy. I don’t remember them much, though. What I do remember is what we created for him, which quickly became his favorite noisemaker of all time. It was a pill bottle (with a childproof lid) partially filled with dry raw couscous.
Why did we pour dried couscous into a random bottle of Walgreen pills for our one year old to play with? I have no idea. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was a good idea. He loved this thing. He was small enough to be buried in the bottom of his toy bin often enough to give him great pleasure the next time he bumped into it. It was the only thing I always threw in my bag on the road, on the plane, or in the doctor’s waiting room. “Take a bottle of couscous,” my husband and I said before leaving the door.
So when I came across this post on The Educators’ Spin On It , I realized how brilliant he is. You don’t need to buy fancy toy drums or colorful maracas to keep your kids playing to the beat. You can make a whole bunch of them at home with what you already have that they’ll love as well. And they will look something like this:
All you need, writes author and educator Kim Vig , is:
- Containers of various shapes, sizes and materials. There’s no limit here – empty water bottles, cans for mixes, coffee cans, plastic barrels that once held your favorite mix of nuts, reusable plastic containers from a local Chinese take-out restaurant. Anything strong enough to withstand the powerful grip of a toddler.
- Materials that need to be put inside containers so that they make different sounds when the “tools” are shaken and rolled. Some ideas: raw rice, short pasta noodles, beans, coins, a handful of loose legos. Of course, the vast majority of these items pose a choking hazard, so you’ll also need:
- A method for sealing lids with hot glue or packing tape. (Even so, you should not completely trust your sealing abilities; babies and toddlers should only play with these items under adult supervision.)
- Colorful wrapping paper. It’s not necessary, but it’s a nice touch.
After cleaning them out, Vig wrapped her partially filled containers with wrapping paper and then completely covered them with packing tape to close the lid and prevent the paper from being torn off in seconds. If the kids are old enough, they can also decorate the containers with stickers or markers for a very personal touch.
And now they are ready to play the “music.” Let a wooden spoon bang on containers like drums, roll them on the ground at different speeds to create different sounds, and then grab one or two to shake to the beat during your next living room dance party.
Or simply stack them like blocks and knock them over to create a cacophony of rumbling, rustling and clanging. It’s fun too.