Handmade Instruments for Preschoolers | Instruments You Can Make Together with Your Child
When children make their own instruments to play rhythm games or perform to music, it fosters their sense of rhythm and pitch, as well as their imagination and expressive abilities, bringing very positive effects to their development.
So this time, we’re introducing handmade instrument ideas you can use in daycare, kindergarten, or at home.
From simple projects you can make with recycled materials or items from the dollar store to more advanced creations based on the principles of real instruments, we’ve gathered a wide range of DIY instrument ideas!
Find projects that match your child’s age and developmental stage, and try making them together.
We hope you’ll enjoy a fun time exploring the unique sounds that these handmade instruments can produce!
- [Childcare] Enjoy handmade tambourines with the children
- Handmade instruments with plastic bottles: try making flutes, percussion, and traditional ethnic instruments.
- [Childcare] Easy to make! Handmade toys that delight 0-year-olds
- Craft activity ideas that parents and children can enjoy together during a preschool observation day
- Paper cup crafts that elementary school kids will love! A collection of fun project ideas
- [Nursery/Kindergarten] Crafts you can play with after making them
- Craft ideas using plastic bottle caps [for boys]
- Make it with everyday materials! A collection of DIY toy ideas recommended for 1-year-olds
- Recommended songs for eurhythmics. Let's enjoy music using our bodies!
- Recommended for 5-year-olds! Simple DIY toy ideas
- By Age: Enjoy Music with Instrument Play! Plus DIY Instrument Ideas
- [Childcare] Recommended for toddlers! Toy ideas you can make and play with
- [Childcare] Fun Rhythm Play! Recommended Games and Hand-Clapping/Hand-Play for Kids
Handmade Musical Instruments for Preschoolers | Instruments to Make Together as Parent and Child (1–10)
Rubber band guitar
If you want to focus on the fun of playing, this rubber band guitar is recommended.
It’s easy to make with just three items— a container, rubber bands, and tape—so even children around three years old can try it with ease.
It’s not just about stretching rubber bands; you also need to adjust the pitch, making it a great handmade instrument for developing musical sensitivity.
However, since it’s made with rubber bands, its durability is on the lower side.
The material of the container also affects the tone, so it might be fun to try making various versions.
Chajchas made from plastic bottles
Are you familiar with the Andean folk instruments called chajchas and semillas? They’re percussion instruments that make sound by shaking shells and other objects strung on cords.
These chajchas made from plastic bottles work on the same principle as a handmade instrument.
The tools you need are an awl and scissors, and the materials are a large number of plastic bottle caps and some string—a simple setup that produces a pleasant, rattling clatter.
Since an awl can be dangerous for children to use, that part requires assistance from a parent or guardian.
cuckoo whistle
If you want to make a genuine handmade instrument using items you have at home, this cuckoo whistle is recommended.
Despite requiring only very simple materials—just a plastic bottle and two bottle caps—the cuckoo whistle can produce an authentic sound, which is its appeal.
You’ll need an adult’s help for one step: using a hole punch and a hammer to make holes in the bottle caps.
Aside from that, children can make it themselves.
However, because it’s a delicate instrument, it may not produce a proper sound if it’s assembled roughly.
It’s best to adjust it repeatedly as you make it.
Handmade Instruments for Preschoolers | Instruments You Can Make with Your Child (11–20)
Cardboard guiro
Many of you may have had, as children, a souvenir-like instrument where you rub a stick along a ridged board to make sound.
That instrument is called a guiro, and in Japan you sometimes see wooden carvings with that feature.
This cardboard guiro works on the same principle: you rub a stick along the corrugated part on the inside of the cardboard to produce sound.
If you increase the box’s durability, the sound becomes clearer, so if possible, strengthen it—like in the video—by adding glue or similar to reinforce it.
stamping tube
Stamping tubes are instruments with a distinctive “bohn” timbre that really stands out—Blue Man Group plays them often.
They may seem difficult, but their construction is simple: you just adjust the pitch by adding filler inside the tube, and you can easily shape the tone.
In the video, they use very large cardboard tubes.
Of course, such big tubes aren’t easy to source.
In that case, the core from a roll of plastic wrap works well.
You can’t strike it with slippers like in the video, but using a plastic spatula produces a fairly good sound, so it’s recommended.
Hairpin kalimba
If you want to develop your child’s sense of pitch, I recommend this hairpin kalimba.
It’s an inexpensive instrument you can make with just four items: a kamaboko board, hairpins, rubber bands, and chopsticks.
It’s a simple instrument where you mount the hairpins onto the kamaboko board using chopsticks and secure them with rubber bands, but the real work starts after fixing the hairpins.
You’ll need to shape the sound by adjusting the angle and length of the hairpins with a hammer or pliers.
This process is perfect for training the ear, so be sure to give it a try.
Plastic bottle whistle
A handmade instrument you can easily make with a lidded plastic bottle and a straw: the plastic bottle whistle.
Many people probably remember blowing across the opening of a plastic bottle or a glass bottle to make sounds when they were kids.
This instrument produces sound based on that same principle, and it’s an easy, accessible project that doesn’t even require scissors.
You simply tape the cap onto the mouth of the bottle and then tape a straw on top of the cap—so simple that even 2- to 3-year-olds should find it easy to make.