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Shape Banjo

There is a guitar store in our local mall and all I have to do to keep my son happy is to tell him that we are going to make a trip to see the guitars and banjos and he is calm ( for the most part). The last banjo was recently sold and he was crushed, he still shows me where it hung in the store saying “No more banjo, someone took it” so to appease his loss we made one. This was so similar to the guitar we made a while back , I decided to make this one out of shapes to vary it.

Gather your materials. You will need some construction paper, a cereal box, a marker, glue , scissors, tape, and 2 pipe cleaners.
Start by drawing the following shapes on your construction paper. We used all different colors but there is no reason to follow our lead, do whatever you wish! A large circle, a rectangle, a square, 4 small triangles, and a smaller circle ( not pictured)
Now trace the shapes on your cardboard , we did this because we wanted a sturdy banjo for him to play with. If you are just making one to display you could simply glue it on paper and not worry about tracing and shape matching.
Add your glue
Start adding the shape pieces
Keep going!
Let dry
When the banjo is dry, cut out.
Poke two holes in the neck, two in the circle
Thread your pipe cleaner through both, bend it towards the back and tape down.
Voila!

Books

“Ben’s Trumpet” by Rachel Isadora is a simple but profound book about one little boy’s dreams. Ben loves jazz, his favorite is the trumpet and he spends much time alone playing his imaginary trumpet and listening at the door of a local jazz club. When other kids make fun of his imaginary trumpet he stops playing, that is until the trumpeter himself steps in. I like this book and as a mom of a little boy who plays an imaginary trumpet often I love that it gave him something to relate to and confirm that dreaming and imagining is good for the soul.

“Zin Zin Zin ! A Violin” by Lloyd Moss is a big hit at our house and if you have a child into music or musical instruments this is a great book. You count the instruments as they come on stage for a performance and not only is this a great counting book, but it introduced musical instruments in it’s rhyming text and super fun pictures. I am biased though my little man is really really into instruments and loves this book. The day we bought it I had to sit in the back with him on the way home from the bookstore because he couldn’t wait to read it .

“Max Found Two Sticks” by Brian Pinkney is a great book for any kid that likes to drums or stick, or drum sticks. So that pretty much means all kids. Max isn’t a talker but he can express all sorts of things by thumping and banging the sticks he finds on different things. I like how he imitates the changing sounds in his environment and my son loved the marching band . Great tool for teaching about sounds, music and self expression.