This was a fast easy activity I wanted to do to work on my son’s one to one correspondence but using a theme he is head over heels for . This also allowed me to work on the concept of zero.  Since doing this we have been noticing that there are “zero” dinosaurs in the backyard, “zero” boys eating their broccoli at lunch and “zero” children napping! I love it when I stumble on a concept that is new to him and we can work on it in a fun way.

1. Gather your materials. You will need 2 sheets of paper , some yarn, a marker, scissors and glue.
2. Start by drawing the outline of a guitar on your brown paper . Don’t get hung up on it being perfect, as long as your child can tell it’s a guitar – you are fine!
3. Cut out. You could also do this whole activity just with paper as a work sheet, but I find that even though the difference isn’t great to us between using a pen or the yarn , I think it is for children. Manipulating the objects really creates an experience.
4. Next add the details and numbers .
5. Cut your yarn into short pieces for the strings.
6. Time to glue! This is the step my son joined me at. Depending on your child’s interest and age you could have them join in whenever. Glue the guitars on.
7. Identify the numbers and add that many pieces of yarn.

Songs!

I posted this on my facebook page ) but if you missed it. All my song videos that were originally on my blogger site are frozen so you can see them all here !

Book

Sunny by Robin Mitchell and Judith Steedman  is a great book about finding sounds all around and making music with anything and everything you find. Sunny hears music from the animals around town, the vehicles and of course his friends playing at the playground.  My son loved when they had a “Hootenanny” and everyone together makes music in their own way. This book reminded me of the broadway show “Stomp” from the 90s, and is a great lesson for kids about how accessible making music really is.

]]> http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2010/08/music-math-activity.html/feed 5 http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2009/03/music-man.html http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2009/03/music-man.html#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:55:00 +0000 admin http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/?p=425

I am not sure if I have shared my son’s insane love of musical instruments with you or not, well I guess I just did. He loves them, especially trumpets, guitars and upright bases. The easiest of the three to recreate during art time, is the guitar by far. This little creation has been played with for almost a week and has held up well, I hope you have as much fun with it as we have.

1. Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard, scrap piece of black construction paper, tape, sharp scissors, 3 metallic pipe cleaners, and lots of markers.
2. Draw a simple guitar on the cardboard. Perfection is not required, as long as your child can guess that it’s a guitar you are fine.
3. Have your color it with markers. I chose markers over paint because you have to wait for paint to dry and this is a project you want to play with immediately.
4. Cut out the black oval for the hole while your child is coloring.
5. Tape the oval on.
6. Cut out the guitar.
7. Poke 3 holes o the neck of the guitar, and 3 corresponding ones at the base.
8. Thread your pipe cleaners through , bend and tape the pipe cleaners on the back side.
9. Tape over the tape a few times so the pipe cleaners are secure and no sharp bits can peek through.
10. Rock out!

Books !

“Tuba Lessons” by T.C. Bartlett is a book about a little boy walking to his tuba lesson and all the things he encounters along the way. The book has very limited text but tells a sweet story effectually without it. Younger children will need a parent to help spark the story with questions about what’s happening but even my 2 year old clued into the music notes getting bigger when there was a louder sound and smaller when it was quiet. Grab it and see what I am talking about.

“This Jazz Man” by Karen Ehrhardt is my new favorite book. The book updates the classic children’s song “This Old Man” and inserts all different men in a jazz band, however at the end of the book it explains that each jazz man is actually a real person including Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and more! I love the bios at the end of the book because I want to learn more about jazz too. Ok back to the book, the book itself is a counting book,and my son eats it up, he loves calling out the number and instrument as I read the rhyme. He has had me read it countless times today and I haven’t minded one bit,the pictures by R.G. Roth are adorable, and all in all I just love this book!