Drumming Helps Children Learn

 Lub -Dub, Lub -Dub, boom-da-da- boom. Young children are drawn to drumming sounds and love to move with the beats found in every culture. Just observe young children at Pow-wows, band concerts, weddings, and parades. Drums are also a fun learning tool. 

Materials Needed:

Purchased drums, homemade drums, and drumsticks

What To Do:

   To make your own drum sets help children gather cardboard, plastic, wooden, tin containers of different sizes and shapes. Include a discussion that walls and furniture are NOT drums.

   Large boxes are great big bass drums.  They can be held upright or placed flat on the floor for a deep warm sound.  Stay away from high-pitched sounding pots and pans, but include one pizza pan for a realistic cymbal.

   Wooden spoons and chopsticks make excellent drumsticks. Music stores also have inexpensive ones. If desired, muffle sounds by wrapping cloth secured with string around the tips. Children can also just use their hands.

  Use the different sizes, shapes, and materials to explain that large containers make a deep sound and small ones make a higher sound.  Drums, like all other musical instruments, produce sound by vibrating air molecules. These air molecules push together and pull apart until the sound finally reaches the ear. Air molecules have more space and move slower in a large drum chamber. Slower movement creates a deeper sound. Place your children’s hands on a container while you drum.  They can feel the vibration.

  To avoid a crazy riot of banging, drum with your children. Teach them to follow a beat so later they can make their own. Can they imitate different rhythms you make?  Can they beat fast, slowly, loudly and softly?  Can they drum to songs like “Little Drummer Boy” that has a soft steady beat? Familiar songs like “Old MacDonald” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” have varied rhythms. Create a drumming circle so adults and children can drum together, take turns, and imitate each other.

  “You Tube” is filled with college and high school marching bands, drum circles, and Pow-Wow’s to inspire drumming and dancing.

What Else Can We Do?

  Include drumsticks on your next neighborhood walk and explore the different sounds children can make drumming on trees, pipes, and rocks. Take children to  live performances where they can experience the power of percussion. Liven up a dreary day by marching around your house to the music of a college band playing fight songs.

How Does This Help My Child?

   Drumming, like other kinds of music, helps children focus, relieves stress, elevates moods, improves listening skills, increases coordination, and provides exercise. 

Find Out More

For more ways to encourage music and expend energy on long winter days see the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site www.grandparentsteachtoo.org.

Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest.

Photos: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kashmera/3767680884/ DSC_0028

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Navy_050216-N-7923C-211_A_young_Indian_girl,_who_attends_the_Saint_Francis_Xavier_School_for_Children_with_Special_Needs,_plays_a_drum_during_a_concert_held_by_the_U.S._Seventh_Fleet_Band.jpg

Plan a Picnic -- Indoors?

Picnics are definitely a summertime favorite for kids of all ages, but how about planning a wintertime picnic? What better way to enjoy a fun, indoor activity by staying warm and not worrying about the ants! What to bring is always a big decision. Involve your children in menu planning and skill building while you are planning your fun time together. 

Materials you will need: Food magazines or old cookbooks with pictures, scissors, glue, paper plates, markers, crayons, paper punch, yarn, and drawing paper

What to do:

  Plan the Meal: Before you invite your children to go on a picnic, label several paper plates with the incomplete sentence:  _____will eat_____on our picnic. Explain that a menu needs to be planned. Ask your children what are their favorite picnic foods. Be sure to share your favorites. Make a list of these foods. Talk with your child about healthy choices and a well-balanced meal. 

  The nutrition site www.choosemyplate.gov has a many easy food suggestions for young children.  Decide what to bring and put a check mark by each food you will pack. Find pictures of favorite picnic foods in magazines or old cookbooks. Your child might want to draw and color the foods instead.

  Help your child, if necessary, cut out the pictures. Glue one picture in the middle of each paper plate pre-labeled with the sentence. Remind your children that one dot does a lot when using glue. Help your children correctly print their name on the first blank and the name of the food on the second blank. 

  Writing tips:  Use pencil dots as a guide for children to trace. Use only a capital letter at the beginning of your children’s or your name. Help children listen for sounds in the words that will be written down. Children could substitute your name on some of the plates. 

   Make a Meal Book: Decide upon a title and write it on a clean paper plate. Stack the finished plates under the front cover and bind the book along the left edge using the punch and yarn. Take time to read the book together. Have your child read each food item as you pack it. Once you are all packed, off you go on a warm sunny adventure indoors or outdoors!

How does this help my children?

Your children are learning about making healthy choices when deciding on what to eat. They are learning name recognition and writing the names correctly. When writing, your children are learning letter recognition, letter sounds, practicing correct letter formation, and that peoples’ names begin with capital letters. Proper print letter formation is found on line and in children’s practice books.

What else can I do? Go to the library to find  "Teddy Bears' Picnic" by Jimmy Kennedy and "The Bears' Picnic by Stan Berenstain. Then cuddle and enjoy some great picnic tales.

Photos: Picnic Basket: Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Author: Jeremy Noble; Campsite Mural (Teddy Bears' Picnic), Campsie, Omagh - geograph.org.uk - 619801.jpg. From Wikimedia Commons; Salads: By U.S. Department of Agriculture (20111025-FNS-RBN-2046) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Find More Activities: 

For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site www.grandparentsteachtoo.org.

Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest.

Designing Note Cards

What better way is there to involve young children in writing than by creating their own cards? It provides practice and develops life long social skills that never go out of style. These handy note cards say thank you, get well, or congratulations. 

Materials: plastic table cover, card stock paper or card, FOAM shaving cream, food coloring, cookie sheet, scraper (credit card type edge), spatula, stick, crayons or markers.

What to do:

  Cover the workspace with plastic.  Help children squirt a large mound of FOAM shaving cream on a cookie sheet. Show children how to spread foam with a spatula a little larger than the card.  Help them leave the cream thick as it is being spread. Next children drop a dot or two of food colors at different spots on the foam. Discuss the choice of colors. Teach or let them guess what will appear when they swirl the colors together. While swirling with a stick discuss what is happening. Be careful not to swirl too much as the design will turn gray.

  Children are ready to create a card. Help them place the paper on the foam, coating one side. Remove it carefully. Scrape off excess foam with a scraper. This is the outside of the card.  Children may choose to do the other side of the paper which would be the inside design.

  After an hour, the card is ready for your children to print inside.

Help them print a very short note if they are ready. Absolute correctness isn’t as important as the message. Some adults use dots to print a short note, and children follow the dots. Correct manuscript handwriting guides of upper and lower case letters are available at stores and on-line. Be aware that children’s skills are different from child to child even in the same family. A certain age does not guarantee a certain skill. Sometimes is it best for children to draw a picture or make some scribbles, and then adults print the scribble meaning. Children can also dictate a sentence to an adult. Keep it fun. Friends and relatives will love the thoughtful notes regardless.

How does this help my child?

  By swirling primary colors of red, blue, and yellow your children create secondary colors of purple, orange, green. Adults are also providing practice with letter recognition, sounds, holding a printing tool, quiet discussion, and creating contemporary art.

What else can I do:

Use blue paint tape and tape off shapes.  Remove the tape once the card is dry. Print inside the blank spot. Your child might want to add stamps, stickers, or draw pictures.

Find More Activities: 

For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site www.grandparentsteachtoo.org.

Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest.

Picture: Gray, Ann. background.jpg. December 1, 2006. Pics4Learning. 2 Feb 2014