Music Lab for Kids: Balloon Cup Shaker Drums

The Project: Drum/Shaker Instrument
This was an instrument that I kind of cobbled together from several different ideas of DIY instruments from household objects. I found a very cool drum made from a balloon stretched over the opening of a plastic cup, and that was going to be the project.

Think these, but made with Solo cups because tin cans are hard to find
these days and the edge can be dangerously sharp.

After I thought about the cup drums for a while, I thought about the big empty space inside the plastic cups. We had the large size already in the supply cabinet so that's the size I planned to use (think college dorm party Red Solo Cups), and that seemed like a waste of materials. So, I delved deep into the same closet and found a giant bag of uncooked rice. I figured if you add a handful of rice before stretching the balloon over the cup's opening, you'd have a drum AND a shaker!

The supplies for this project ended up being uncooked rice, large plastic cups, and balloons. We also needed scissors to cut the ends off the balloons. The picture shows rubber bands to keep the balloons on, but I didn't find rubber bands necessary when using plastic cups. Tip if you're thinking of doing this project: HAVE EXTRA BALLOONS AVAILABLE! I didn't realize it when I made my demo drum, but balloons have a tendency to break if you're stretching them in unnatural ways. I ended up having to leave the room during the program to grab more balloons, which is something I try my best not to do. 

Another tip that never even crossed my mind until it was a real-life situation: beware of latex allergies when working with balloons. There was one child who's mom had to do some quick redirecting when they realized the craft involved balloons because of skin allergies. I try to remember food allergies, but often forget there are other types of allergies that can be just as serious. Luckily, this particular mom was very adept at redirecting her kiddo without any kind of tantrum or hurt feelings. In the future, I plan to announce the supplies aloud in case a kiddo has an allergy or sensitivity.

Program Structure

I was much happier with the Music Lab program this month. In January, I structured it more like an instructional program where we made our instruments and then learned chants together as a group. Today, I put out a couple containers of instruments as well as the instrument-making station and structured the program as a drop-in. This worked better for me since Music Lab happens directly after Learn and Grow with Rhythm and Flow (LGRF) and it sometimes takes a few minutes to recover from high-energy storytimes like that. 

It also worked great for this craft in particular since it involved loose rice. I forgot that toddlers and any tiny, loose craft supply (rice, glitter, etc.) equals a big mess. Structuring the program this way allowed me to be in slightly more control of the rice and keep the mess in one area of the room for easier clean-up.

Before this morning, I was seriously considering cancelling future occurrences of program because it didn't have a solid direction and I wasn't sure it was a good library program. However, I got some great positive feedback from parents, singing the praises of the two programs together for their mix of education and entertainment. That coupled with a participant number over 70 has inspired me to keep Music Lab for Kids going for a few more months and see if it works out as a companion to LGRF. 

I wasn't able to take many pictures because the morning was very busy, but I did get these two. It was a fun morning and another learning experience as a still-pretty-new programming librarian!

 

Playing the drum!

Instrument free-play

Learn and Grow with Rhythm and Flow: Egg Shakers

My Learn and Grow with Rhythm and Flow (LGRF) format is:

Hello
Warm Up Motor Skills
Heckity Peckity Bumble Bee
Movement Song
Pass Out Instruments
A Capella Instrument Rhyme
Movement Songs with Instruments
Collect instruments
Mellow Movement Song
Goodbye
Bubbles

Note: This post shows all the songs and chants I use when I run this program with egg shakers. I don't use every song and chant every time; that would make for a several-hour-long program and some very wiggly preschoolers!

Hello
"Hello, Hello"
Since LGRF is so high energy, I like to start the programs with a more mellow good morning song than other storytimes. I like this one because it has built-in movements and stretches.

Warming Up Motor Skills

"Open, Shut Them"
On this song we do the movements described in the lyrics: open our hands, close our hands, clap three times, put our hands in our lap, creep our fingers up to our chin, and don't let them in our mouths.

Heckity Peckity Bumble Bee

The "Heckity Peckity" chant is a great way to practice call-and-response, get to know our new friends by name, and practice counting the syllables of words. 

Me and my bumblebee finger puppet

Heckity peckity bumblebee,

Won't you say your name for me?
Bzzzzz (Bee buzzes up to a child and asks their name. Let's say it's Harold.)
Everyone say Harold. (Group says name)
Can we whisper it? (whisper the name)
Can we do it on our legs? (Repeat name and pat thighs with each syllable)
Can we clap it? (Repeat name and clap with each syllable)
Now let's turn off our voice (Do a clicking motion with hand on throat and make clicking sound)
And let's just clap it (Group claps the syllables without speaking)
How many claps was that? (Group answers)
Harold's name is two claps! Who is next?

Movement Song

You could pretty much use any movement songs in this program, but there are several that I've noticed go over extra well when the kids are excited about puppets and instruments, and just need to shake their wiggles out. I usually go with one of these ten...

"Bop 'Til You Drop" by Greg and Steve

"It's Time to Stand Up" by Susan Salidor

"The Goldfish" by Laurie Berkner

"Can't Sit Still" by Greg and Steve

"Tooty Ta" by The Kiboomers

"The Freeze" by Greg and Steve

(weird video, but you can hear the song pretty well)

"Jumping and Counting" by Jim Gill

"Arms Up"

"Clap Your Hands"

"Hokey Pokey"

Pass Out Egg Shakers

When it's time to pass out the instruments, I tell the kids they must be sitting down calmly in order to get one. If they're extra wiggly, I might do a calming song like "Everybody Do This Just Like Me" or "Eyes are Watching, Ears are Listening," but this is only necessary about half the time. Once they see kids who are sitting down getting handed rhythm sticks or egg shakers, they get the idea and assume the position themselves. Also, since it's impossible to be handed a musical instrument and not make noise with it right away, I don't make them keep it quiet until everyone has theirs. 

A Capella Egg Shaker Rhyme

"One, Two, Shake it on Your Shoe"

(To the rhythm of "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe")

One, two, shake it on your shoe (shake eggs near shoes)

Three, four, shake it on the floor (bend down and shake eggs near floor)

Five, six, stir and mix (pretend shakers are the spoon mixing in a large bowl)

Seven, eight, hold them up straight (hold shakers above your head)

Nine, ten, do it all again (shake eggs excitedly)

Movement Songs with Instruments

I can only keep the attention of a room full of preschoolers with musical instruments for so long, so this is the point in the program where I let recorded music do the majority of the work. I encourage the kids and grownups to dance and sing along, as well as follow the directed movements suggested in the lyrics. These songs are all fantastic for working with egg shakers because they acknowledge the instruments and show the kids several different ways to use them.

"Going to Kentucky" by Laurie Berkner

"Shake Your Sillies Out" by Raffi

"Milkshake" by Old Town School of Folk Music

"Shaky Shaky" by The Wiggles

Collect Egg Shakers

I don't try the "only those sitting down can put their instruments away" method for collecting... It does not work. By the end of the second song, they're either over using the instruments or so attached that they will sob if I try to take them away. For this reason, I simply encourage everyone to be good helpers and clean up all the instruments until they're all back in their bin. The prospect of helping me clean up is usually enough to get the clingers to relinquish their toys, especially when it's coupled with the promise that they'll get to play with them again next time.

Mellow Movement Song

The last thing I like to do before singing the goodbye song and having bubbles is one more movement song to help the littles re-compose themselves after the trauma of having to say goodbye to the toys. The best one I've found is Ella Jenkin's "Follow the Leader." 

Goodbye

"Until We Meet Again" from Out of the Box
Before singing this song, we learn a vocabulary word: clave. Clave is a type of rhythm used mostly in Afro-Cuban music, characterized by it's three-two beat. When I teach the word to preschool-age kids, I have them count to three, pause, and count to two, then do it again with clapping. The Out of the Box goodbye song uses a clave pattern, so after we learn what the word means, we practice clapping the clave pattern as we say goodbye to our friends.

Bubbles!
The last thing I do at every storytime is blow bubbles. The kids go crazy over them! I play the same songs every time so they get to know that after we say goodbye, we have bubbles for the duration of two songs, and then storytime is over until next time. Our regulars know this is the way it always goes, which is a great introduction to establishing routines in other aspects of life as they grow.
One Little, Two Little, Three Little Bubbles
Yo Gabba Gabba Bubbles Song

Patron Interaction: Picking Up Lots of Things

There is a family who regularly attends storytime: a mom, 4-year-old twins, and a toddler who is about 2. The twins, one boy and one girl, are incredibly smart and advanced for their age. The boy could sit down and read an entire picture book from cover to cover when he was three. They are also pretty calm and reserved, preferring to stay on mom's lap or on the outskirts of the group when we sing and dance in storytime.

On Wednesday, the whole family came to Toddlertime, which once again includes a 15-minute toy session at the end. When clean-up was finished the boy twin came up to me with a very concerned look on his face. I knelt to his level and held both of my hands out. He placed one hand in each of mine, very delicately. I asked him what was wrong.

"UM," he said. "I only got to pick up one thing. I wanted to pick up lots of things."

From getting to know this family over the last year, I know it's extra important to this little guy that he has items and experiences that are just his own, because he has to share so much with his twin sister. I told him that if he came back on Friday (today) for Shake, Boogie, and Bop, he could be an extra good cleaner-upper when we played with egg shakers.

Flash forward to today. The Shake, Boogie, and Bop group were fairly raucous. We didn't get to the point in the program where I would have brought out the egg shakers, and I'm glad we didn't, because there were some older boys in there and I was having psychic visions of egg shakers being hurled full-throttle at their brothers' heads. The twins, their baby sister, and their mom were exemplary storytime goers as usual. After we sang our goodbye song and had bubbles, most of the crowd left, but this family stayed behind to chat as they sometimes do.

I brought out the box of egg shakers and set it on the floor. I asked the boy if he would help me sort the shakers and put them back in their box, since we didn't get a chance to use them in class. He and both of his sisters excitedly organized the shakers by color on the floor, then gingerly placed each one back in their bin.

Before they left, I asked him if this satisfied his urge to put away lots of things. He answered with an uncharacteristic yelp of "YES!" He was, however, not nearly as enthusiastic when I suggested he tell his mom he wanted to help clean up lots of things at home, too.

Learn & Grow with Rhythm & Flow 9-8-17

I am so excited to roll out this brand new program! The official description on our website is, "Children ages 3-5 will learn the basics of rhythm and beat, how to work with instruments, and what makes music happen in this upbeat program." Pretty catchy, right? I wrote it. Anyway...

My vision for this program is to help preschoolers grasp the basics of what it means to clap on the beat, how to keep basic rhythm, and understand what is happening in music as they listen. It sounds incredibly complicated for a three-year-old, but I'm pretty sure my dance teachers did this with us and I'm much more musically inclined as an adult because of it.

So we began this morning with what will become my usual Rhythm & Flow introduction. We only do one hello song and "Open, Shut Them" to warm up our fingers, because "Hello Hello" has built in stretches.

I want this storytime to include even more interaction between me and the group of kids than a regular storytime would, so I am getting to know the kids individually using a bumblebee finger puppet and this fun chant:

Heckity peckity bumblebee,
Won't you say your name for me?
Bzzzzz (Bee buzzes up to a child and asks their name. Let's say it's Harold.)
Everyone say Harold. (Group says name)
Can we whisper it? (whisper the name)
Can we do it on our legs? (Repeat name and pat thighs with each syllable)
Can we clap it? (Repeat name and clap with each syllable)
Now let's turn off our voice (Do a clicking motion with hand on throat and make clicking sound)
And let's just clap it (Group claps the syllables without speaking)
How many claps was that? (Group answers)
Harold's name is two claps! Who is next?

I like this one because they are starting to associate counting syllables with words they say every day, like their names. It's also a fun way to get to know your storytime regulars. Here are some videos of people doing Heckity Peckity. Including Jbrary, who are awesome.

Next, we did a movement song with music because we had a lot of wiggles to shake out. I picked "Can't Sit Still" by Greg and Steve today, because it is vaguely directed movement but still allows plenty of opportunity to get the sillies out and be ready to move on to another activity.

Where I would usually put a second movement song in a regular storytime, we did a clapping chant instead. I love this one that I got from Jbrary, "Little Clapping Mouse." 

Before the program, I wrote out the whole rhyme on a rolling white board so grownups and any reading children could follow along. I added two asterisks to the end of each line to indicate where the claps go, like this:

Behind the tree * *
And under the house * *
There lives a teeny * *
Tiny mouse * *
She loves to sing * *
She loves to tap * *
But most of all * *
She loves to clap * *
She claps all night * *
She claps all day * *
She claps to frighten * *
The cat away! * * * * * * * *

Having the words written out in a place storytimers can see them makes it easier for them to follow along right away, instead of me needing to teach the rhyme aloud. We did it two times through as a group. The kids got the hang of when to clap by the second time.

Another vision I had for this program was the use of a musical instrument every time. Today we used egg shakers, which are noisemakers similar to maracas, but great for teeny tinies because they fit perfectly in their hands.

As I passed them out, I gave the kids time to shake them on their own and start to explore everything they could do with them. Then we sang an a capella version of "Happy and You Know It" using the shakers. Each verse below is the full, usual verse of the song with the clapping, stomping, and hooray-ing substituted with the following words:

If you're happy and you know it, give a shake (*shake shake*)
If you're happy and you know it, give a clap (tap shakers together *clap clap*)
If you're happy and you know it, give a tap (tap shakers on legs *tap tap*)
If you're happy and you know it, do all three (*shake shake, clap clap, tap tap*)

Then we did two recorded songs with the egg shakers: "I Know a Chicken" and "Milkshake." "I Know a Chicken" is great because it mentions egg shakers specifically, and gives direction on how to use the shakers. Laurie Berkner strikes again!

After we gave all the shakers back, I launched right into our goodbye song. We used the same one that I do for Preschool Storytime and Toddler Time, for the simple reason that I love it. I also like to see the kids copying me when I demonstrate the sign language.

All in all, my first completely original storytime went really well. There were 75 people in the room which was a little overwhelming, but they all had a good time and so did I!