These toy band instruments are fun to make and to play! Kids can start up their own marching band and easily create a whole batch of instruments.
Let's hear Yankee Doodle and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. How about WeThree Kings and Oh Suzanna?
It will be fun to have a band and play the songs on instruments. Making the instruments may be the most fun though.
Here is what you need for the banjo or the box guitar:
Banjo: A shoe box , a pencil, and four rubber bands, a paper towel tube, four sewing pins and a knife or scissors to cut the box.
Box Harp: a shoe box, rubber bands that will fit around the box longwise, scissors.
For either start by cutting a hole in the lid about 3 inches across. The banjo will also have a hole in one end of the box for the handle to fit into.
Fit the lid on the banjo and the handle into the end. Stretch the rubber bands around the box so they cross the hole in the lid and ease the pencil under the bands at the bottom of the holes to form a bridge.
The harp will be made just by securing the bands tightly across the hole in the box lid.
Plink away and remember that the tightness and the thickness of the rubber bands determines the pitch of sound-so experiment.
Try some more instruments--finger cymbals, a flute and drum. Or try maracas, a comb kazoo and a tambourine.
