Making a Syllable Drum

Have I shared how much I love activities that combine multiple disciplines?!? This activity is all about music and language arts.

There are two parts of this activity: 1) making a drum and 2) reading and banging out the beats (aka syllables) on the instrument we'd crafted.

The drum can be made out of any recycled cylinder - the sturdier the better (I used an empty raisin container). Cut a piece of paper to fit around the drum’s exterior and ask your child to decorate it however they like. Use double-sided tape to attach.

Then cut two circles from any non-fraying material (I used vinyl leftover from a cowboy vest I made for Halloween a few years ago). The circles should be about ¾-inch wider all the way around your cylinder. We used a small bowl to trace the circle shape before cutting it out.

Use a paper punch to make holes in the circles about a ¼-inch in from the edge, roughly 1 ½ inches apart. Make sure both circles have the same number of punched holes.

Place one circle right-side down on the table. Add a bead of hot glue around the edge of the cylinder to hold it in place. Put the cylinder on top and add glue to the top of the cylinder, placing the other fabric circle over it. Now use a ridiculously long piece of yarn or other string to thread up and down through the holes, working your way around the drum. When you get back to where you began, tie the strings together. (NOTE: We neglected to use glue and our circles were constantly slipping as we threaded the yarn.)

With our drum made, it was time to read. Steve Webb’s Tanka Tanka Skunk is an awesome book for teaching syllables. An Amazon.com reviewer shared this little nugget and you know what? They were right.

Two lovable characters (Tanka, the elephant, and Skunka, the skunk) bang on their drums, drumming the beats of animal words (e.g. kan-ga-roo has 3 beats and cat-er-pil-lar has 4 beats). As I read the book, my son banged out the beats of the animal names on his new drum.

When he got confused (for example, trying to make fox into two beats), I reminded him that each syllable has just one vowel sound. Since there is only one vowel sound in fox, it has only one beat, or syllable.

This was SO MUCH fun! When he finished Webb’s book, he practiced lots of other words like the names of EVERYONE in our family and his teacher's name too. Then he asked if he could wear the drum; I tied a long ribbon around it so he could sling it over his shoulder and drum all over the house. My little drummer boy is learning syllables and drumming up some funky beats at the same time!

Now that’s music to my ears!