Friday, May 6, 2011

Bucket Drumming

This week we've been drumming on empty buckets while reading the book, Tanka, Tanka Skunk.  The book has lots of different animals that we drummed to the beat of their names.  Then we drummed our own names and talked about how many "beats" (early introduction to syllables!) were in their names.  For example, "Jack" has one beat, and "Lauren" has two.
After praciticing the beats, we explored pounding on different parts of our drums, and mallets (using the stick end, tapping on the sides, etc.) Then we put on some drumming music and drummed til we ran out of time, or until our sticks broke - whichever came first.
You can easily make your own drum set with any empty bucket, a dowel (at least 1/2" round) and a rubber ball.  Use a sharp object (or a drill!) to make a hole into the ball to insert the stick.  Load up with lots of expoxy glue (I use EC6000), and place the ball on top of the stick.  Let dry overnight and then start banging!