The preschoolers explored sound and movement by playing the drums that were made from recycled containers. Also included were some of the objects from our classroom, such as plastic buckets and wooden bowls. This activity was led by the preschooler's interests in music and movement.
As soon as they saw that I was setting up the objects on the floor, several children came to me and asked.
Blakley: "What are these?"
Geumhwa: "These are drums. You can choose one of them to play with."
Blakley: "Drums?" Then she started to bang the containers with her hands.
After I distributed the two tree sticks to each of them, they immediately started playing with them. I asked them to play quietly, loudly, slowly, quickly, and happily.
Then I said: “Now you know how to play the drums with different speed and power, next we will play the drums while we are singing a song that has a slow beat.”
First, we drummed to, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."
We then followed with a faster song, "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom."
Next, I played, "The Cha Cha Slide song." I could see that the children were trying their best to play the drums by following the speed and what the singer said in the music, for example, "how low you can go? how high you can reach…?"
In addition, I asked the children to choose a song they liked while they were playing the drums. Blakely chose, "Let it Go." She played slowly by following the beat of the song. In the middle of her playing she stretched her arms up in the air and sang along, but she did not forget to go back to play the drums.
Josephine chose another song, "Baby Beluga." After playing that she then brought the drum she played and moved to the chair where she sat and continuously played the drum.
Buareake played with an aluminum container that had no cover throughout the activity. At the end of the activity, I found he had collected some of the tree sticks and put them on the container to construct something.Eli was so focused on playing the drum, he banged the aluminum container until it dented. You can imagine how he enjoyed it.
The children used eye-hand coordination skills and their sense of hearing to bang the drums while following the music. Also, they experimented with the concept of the tempo of the songs, banging the drums faster for a fast song, and banging the drums slowly if it was a slow song.
To avoid disturbing the children who did not participate in sound exploring activity, I will consider expanding the activity to an outdoor environment in the future. To expand the children’s learning and interest, I will plan to prepare some real drums along with different objects that are different from this time. I am looking forward to seeing more unexpected amazing ideas that the children will bring to us.
