Easy to Make Musical Instruments for a Preschool Child

Shakers

• 1

  Let your child decorate two paper plates, a plastic container or a paper-towel tube. Use crayons, paint, tissue or construction paper.

• 2

  Staple around the two paper plates, leaving a small opening. If you're using a paper-towel tube, cover one end with aluminum foil or paper.

• 3

  Fill the space between the plates or inside the paper-towel tube or plastic container with beads, dried beans or other similar pebble-like objects.

• 4

  Staple the opening of the paper plates shut. For a plastic container or paper-towel tube, cover the opening with a cap or paper. Let your child shake the shaker.

Drum

• 5

  Cut a piece of construction paper to fit around an empty oatmeal box or other cylindrical container.

• 6

  Ask your child to decorate the construction paper.

• 7

  Assist your child with gluing the decorated paper to the container.

• 8

  Place the plastic lid on top of the container.

• 9

  Give your child spoons, chopsticks or similar objects to use to play the drum.

Shoebox Guitar

• 10

  Cut an oval-shaped hole in the lid of a shoebox. Let your child decorate the shoebox.

• 11

  Tape the lid onto the shoebox.

• 12

  Stretch three or four rubber bands around the shoebox so that they rest over the hole in the lid.

• 13

  Slide a pencil underneath the rubber bands on one end of the top of the box.

• 14

  Show your child how to pluck the rubber bands with a finger.