Fingerprint Musical Notes

I have one last project to share that goes along with our music theme this week.

I got the idea from the 3-year-old teacher at my center. She had the kids make a bunch of fingerprints on a piece of paper and then she added the stems to them. I loved it. Since my kids are a bit older, I decided to have a little more structure to it by using music staves. So after a google search for blank staves, I printed one out and then enlarged it. The quality wasn't so great after a 250% enlargement, so I ended up tracing it with a Sharpie onto another piece of paper. I chose to make three. I put out some ink pads and the kids used their fingers to make notes on each staff.

Then, after washing the ink off their hands, they used markers to make the stems.

They turned out so cute! I even asked them to think of a song name for their music (real or made-up) and I wrote it at the top of the paper.

Thanks for the idea, Ms. Amanda!

Jeweled Egg Shakers

My kids love the egg shakers from our musical instrument collection. They fit perfectly in their hands and are easy to use. So I thought it would be fun if they made their own! I brought in some plastic easter eggs and stuck a bunch of sequins onto small glue dots. The kids picked the color egg they wanted and decorated it with the sequins.

Then I scooped up some rice into the bottom half of the egg. I didn't use too much rice because I thought it sounded better with less.

And then, to keep the rice mess to a minimum, I used a toothpick to apply craft glue around the rim.

It didn't work very well. You could still pull apart the egg, but I think the glue would hold it together if the egg was dropped. We'll see! I put them in an egg carton until they were dry.

It was another simple project that the kids absolutely loved!

Musical Bracelets and Some Painting

Okay, so they are just jingle-bell bracelets, but our theme this week is music so I decided to call them musical bracelets. These were so easy to make and the kids loved them! I put out pipe cleaners, beads and jingle bells and the kids got to work making their bracelets.

The beads we used were left over from our friendship bracelets, and were sent to me from CraftProjectIdeas.com. The kids strung on some bells and some beads,

and then I wrapped the pipe cleaner around itself. I wanted it to be loose enough that they could take it off by slipping it over their hand, but not so loose that it would fall off.

We did a little dancing after this project and the kids loved how they jingled with every move!

Here is another activity we did for our music theme. I put our CD player next to the art table and played Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The kids painted to the music.

We used neon paint and marbled paper, just for fun. The kids painted fast when the music was fast, slow when it was slow. They painted big strokes when the music was loud, small strokes when it was quiet.

Well, maybe not ;o) But that was my suggestion!

They turned out pretty, nonetheless.