Learning About Stringed Instruments - Mother Goose Time

Learning about stringed instruments with Mother Goose Time was really fun for Little Guy.  He loves guitars for whatever reason, and was pretty stoked when I brought out his ukulele to mess with during circle time.

First we made a violin prop.  It is a cardboard violin and bow.  First he decorated it with markers, because markers are less messy than paint and more fun than crayons.  Then he laced the first part and I finished the lacing because I didn't want to cut the yarn since I couldn't find any scissors.  It doesn't look quite like the picture, but he liked it.  I showed him how to hold it, and then showed him a picture of a man playing a violin and he copied him and played along.

Decorating the violin

Now Little Guy might not have a lot of crafting or dancing experience, and he might not do well with controlling his breath, but he knows his alphabet really, really well.  So V is for Violin was cake.  He didn't do very well with making the letters with the string, but then the string IS embroidery floss and kind of awkward to work with.  This game was definitely aimed more at a classroom setting, so we kind of made up our own version.  They kids were supposed to each get one care and the one with the "V" was the winner, but since I only have one kid in my "class" I just had him close his eyes, and hid a card under his leg and when I paused the music he opened them and saw if he had a "V" to be the winner.  

Today we read Meet the Orchestra.  It was a pretty good book, but I don't think he really learned anything from it.  It was really detailed, and kind of abstract.  It is probably better for 4 or 5 year olds.  He did appreciate the animals play instruments though.

Next we played counting strings.  You roll the die and then pluck the number of strings that were rolled.  LOTS of counting practice.  He TRIED to do well, but he liked to keep plucking AFTER he should have been done.  But it was still a lot of counting practice, and he got to feel like a grown up rolling the die (we play a lot of board games, but at two, he doesn't get to participate yet).

Plucking the strings

Finally we finished up with Stringed Snack.  He got to make his own snack.  He did not do a super good job of making it resemble anything but a porcupine, but it WAS his first time working in the kitchen, so my expectations were quite low.  The idea was to take crackers, spread them with cream cheese, then add pretzels and strings of string cheese to make a violin/guitar/cello snack.  He tried to spread the cream cheese, enjoyed being allowed to pull apart the string cheese, and then he stabbed the pretzel sticks into it.  I made one as an example and he pulled it apart to eat it. 

We have only been doing this for four days, and he has already had so many opportunities to do thing I never would have thought of, and to learn about things I didn't even think to teach a 2 year old.  We are so blessed to be able to use this curriculum.  Tomorrow is our last day of Orchestra, and although I am really excited about Sights and Sounds Outdoors, I am a little sad that we are done with the musical instruments.  It was such a creative thing to teach small children about!

Oh yeah!  We were talking to the girls about what he learned today and I reminded him about the violin he made, so he asked if he could go get it, and ran and got it and showed the girls how they should hold it.  Then he was excited so he went to show his daddy!  Super cute!