Preschool Music for “Love Our Planet”

Aug 13, 2024 | Activities

Homemade instruments using recycle items are a delightful and musical way to celebrate “Love our Planet.” I have many ideas for homemade instruments in In All Kinds of Weather, Kids Make Music, Songs of the Sea, Farm Songs, Jungle Beat and My Trip to the Mountains. I think these themes celebrate our planet and so many of the songs in these collections are awesome when accompanied by homemade instruments! 

Water bottles (I’m thinking of the ones that are ribbed) are great for a guiro.  Soak in soapy water to remove the label. Use the water bottle cap to scrape or tap on the bottle. If you want it to also be a shaker, put small items like beads, pebbles or rice inside and close with the cap.  Use a cap from another type of bottle to play it or use another item like a plastic spoon to hit and scrape.

Toilet paper or paper towel rolls can be used to make shakers. Decorate the tube, add small water bottle caps, cover with fabric scraps and use glue or rubber bands to fasten.

Old socks can be decorated to be silly worms. Add some small stones in a small dressing container, place inside the sock and shaka shake for “Lots of Worms” from Farm Songs and the sounds of Moo-sic.

Refer to the instrument making section in the back of my books for lots more ideas.  

If you type in Earth Day using the Search feature in Music Box, you will find more ideas.

Happy Music Making! www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com

Theme Books with CDs are at www.musicrhapsody.com.  Members, use your Music Box discount code.   www.lynnkleinersmusicbox.com.

Fall songs, Thanksgiving songs

Aug 13, 2024 | Activities

Two of my favorite pairings for fall are drums and shakers. Powama (Brilliant Begginings CD and in the Simply Music Rhapsody curriculum/Playlists) and Shoo Turkey (from Farm Songs and the Sounds of Moosic CD as well as the Simply Music Rhapsody playlists)) are awesome for a large assortment of drums and shakers. Place many assorted drums (tubanos, hand drums, any type will work) and shakers such as maracas, shaker eggs, cabasa, etc) on the edge of the parachute. Powama is a Native American celebration song. Using the beautiful recording of Powama (thank you Mr. Ernest Siva!), have the children stand around the parachute, playing the instrument of their choice. Please note that you should always have way more instruments than the number of children and more than one drum and shaker per child…. I use a samba whistle to signal when to move and dance around the parachute and I blow the whistle again to signal to stop and play a new instruments. For Shoo Turkey, play any drum on the two beats “Yes, Ma’am” and pick up one of the shakers and do a crazy turkey dance around the parachute on the B section for “Shoo Turkey.”  When the song returns to the A section, students stop, place the shaker on the parachute and play the two beats again on the drum for every “Yes, Ma’am.”

Be sure to have these 2 songs repeated, Powama, then Shoo Turkey, at least 2 times because the students love to have a chance to play lots of different instruments.

The Brilliant Beginnings CD for Powama is available at

 http://www.musicrhapsody.com/Music-Rhapsody-CDs/?page=2

The Farm Songs book/CD for Shoo Turkey is available at

http://www.musicrhapsody.com/Farm-Songs-and-the-Sound-of-Moo-sic/

Music Box members, don’t forget to use your discount code.

For the Simply Music Rhapsody training and membership, contact info@musicrhapsody.com to get started or message Lynn directly in Music Box.

Happy Music Making!