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Let's Make Music!

Strum, strike, shake, or blow! Students will explore the ways musical instruments make sounds and then create a unique instrument of their own.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Craft Materials
  • Recycled Materials
  • Tape

Steps

  • Step 1

    Collaborate with a music teacher or community guest to show students some instruments and demonstrate the sounds they make. Have students talk about the different qualities they hear when they are strummed, bowed, struck, shaken, or blown.

  • Step 2

    Challenge students to design and create a unique instrument using recycled objects such as paper towel tubes, tissue boxes, canisters, string, rubber bands, and other materials. They can embellish the instruments by drawing on paper then cutting and taping their design to the instrument.

  • Step 3

    Have students present their instruments to the class and talk about the way it would be played and the kind of sound it would make.

Standards

ARTS: Repurpose objects to make something new.

ARTS: With guidance, explore and experience music concepts (such as beat and melodic contour).

Adaptations

Play excerpts of musical instruments from other parts of the world that might not be very well known, such as a didgeridoo from Aboriginal Australia, a sitar from India, bagpipes from Scotland, or a steelpan drum from Trinidad and Tobago.

Have the class listen to parts of "Peter and the Wolf" by Sergei Prokofiev in which different instruments represent various animals and people: the bird is a flute, the duck is an oboe, the hunters are timpani, the wolf is a French horn, the grandpa is a bassoon, and the cat is a clarinet.