Ideas for your kids

I have been watching my niece for the past two weeks in the morning and I've been trying to keep her and my little girls busy with projects.

Last week I decided to let them make their own musical instruments! This was a fun activity and we used items that we already had on hand.

For a drum we used an empty oatmeal cardboard cylinder. For a maraca/drum we used an empty milk jug and filled it just a little with rice.
For our guitar we used a cereal box, yarn, and duct tape. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the guitar because I let my niece take it home with her. But it was by far the coolest of the instuments. For the drum and the maraca I used elmers glue on the lids to keep them on tight.

For the guitar we cut a small circular hole at the bottom of the cereal box and then made 5 small holes at the bottom of the box and the top of the box. Then I strung the yarn through the top hole and then through the corresponding bottom hole. I used duct tape to hold the string in place. As I moved left with the strings I made them tighter to give the string a different sound when it is plucked. For good measure we placed a couple extra pieces of duct tape over the strings to hold them in place.

After we finished all the instruments I pulled out the paint and let them decorate. It was fun and they enjoyed making their instruments and playing them afterwards.

Overall I found this to be a good activity for preschool aged children and a good activity that children can do almost completely by themselves.