Dear Reader,
I have been up to my ears in canning, and I’m getting pretty tired of tomatoes, so it was kinda nice to have some other commitment and goal that took me away from jars and canners and boxes and boxes of tomatoes to play with my kids. We didn’t do anything fancy, today, just grabbed a few rubber bands and some bread pans and made … well, they’re not really guitars, lets be honest. But they would make some semblance of music while I was testing them out and getting them ready.
This activity was really easy to set up! It helps if you have plenty of rubber bands and can be selective, but the bigger variety, the more enjoyable it is. Just slide the rubber bands onto the bread pan, and then pass it to your kid.
At first, when I handed them to the girls, they kinda stared at me like, “okay, and?” But by the end of playing, they knew the general idea enough to explore on their own.
I was kinda hoping we could focus on finger isolation (using different fingers for individual tasks. Totally looked it up, haha!) because I noticed that although one girl was great at pointing, her sister hadn’t really figured it out, yet; so I wanted to strengthen her ability to point. This activity *could* help with that, And I showed them how to use 1 finger to strum, but in all honesty, it was more fun to just let them explore the world of sound and get all fingers involved!
I sat with them and showed them how to strum the rubber bands for about 15 minutes, and then just let them explore! They pulled on the bands, and pushed, and even turned the pans over to figure out what would happen by playing with the rubber band from the other side! I left them out while I canned, and they’d come back to play throughout the day.
And yes, I know my bread pans are well loved… I don’t make fresh bread enough that it’s worth buying a different set! In fact, I am terrrrrrible at making bread. even pre-made, Rhodes-type stuff! There’s a trick to getting it to rise, and I just don’t know that trick (send me all your tricks in the comments!)
