Craft Your Own Jingle Stick

      Jingle sticks can be made at home easily with very limited equipment. You will need a hammer, two sizes of long nails, bottle caps and some scrap wood. I used a long piece of cedar because it was what I had on hand. One of the nails you will need to use to make the holes in your bottle caps with. This nail should have a slightly larger dimension than those long nails you will use to permanently attach holding the bottle caps. 

      Hammer the holes with the larger nail into the metal caps and place a wooden scrape underneath the cap to give it support. Then you can through away this scrap wood and nail after you've completed the step. 

      Then you will need to rub down your stick with sandpaper and seal it with acrylic varnish. This procedure will insure that little ones will not get splinters from the instrument. After the varnish has dried overnight, hammer the long thinner nails through the holes in the bottle caps and into the wooden stick firmly. 

      Look closely at the picture above; note that the longer finish nails have wide heads. These prevent the caps from falling off the stick while it is shaken.

The Choir performing Ndyahimbisa mukama during the 20th Anniversary of the Choir in Vancouver in 2004 on stage in front of 2200 people.

Want to know more about the Choir and Music for Life? Go to http://africanchildrenschoir.com

Help Jesus Help 12 Million Orphans!!

Craft Your Own Sandblock Instruments

The finished sandblocks are ready for music class.

      Children and or teachers can craft sandblock instruments for their music class, a performance or just for fun. All you will need are blocks of wood, felt and a medium weight sand paper. I used a wood glue to adhere my sandpaper to one side of my wooden tablets after I cut and glued a layer of felt to the wooden blocks. The felt acts as pad to extent the wear of the sandpaper over time. Eventually, you will need to adhere more sandpaper to your instruments as the gritty surface wears down to the felt layer.

The felt pad is sandwiched between the wooden surface and the sandpaper.

      I applied a layer of acrylic sealer to the surface of my sandblocks after gluing these vintage pictures onto the top halves of my sample instruments. The acrylic sealer will help to protect the instruments from wear and tear over time. If you would like to make sandblocks like the ones pictured above, you may click on the restored vintage graphics below to download and print the same images that I used for my teacher's samples.

Vintage pictures of a hound playing musical instruments.

The Metropolitan Baptist Church Cherub Choir (ages 3-5) sings 

"What a Mighty God We Serve!"

More Related Content:

• Children's Music by Nancy Stewart
• Homemade Percussion & Junkmusic