Ducksters
Ducksters: Music for Kids: How Woodwind Instruments Work
On this website, students can explore how woodwind musical instruments work. Explore how wind vibrations make sounds.
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments: Dividing Notes
Students create an altered musical melody by dividing fractions. They compute the value of notes in terms of fractions and make their sum equal to the time signature.
PBS
Pbs: Rough Science
Website companion to PBS show, "Rough Science," in which five scientists use their collective expertise to complete a series of tasks. Follow the scientists as they do things like generate electricity, make soap, make antibacterial...
Ducksters
Ducksters: Music for Kids: How String Instruments Work
Kids learn about how musical string instruments work. Understand what makes the music and notes on this website.
Other
Creative Kids at Home: Rain Sticks
Making homemade instruments is always fun for young kids. Help them make these percussion rain sticks using ordinary materials. Kids will have fun decorating and playing their rain sticks.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Practice Makes Perfect
As we all know, practice makes perfect. This clip highlights several children playing musical instruments and challenges the students to write about a time when they felt proud of themselves for working hard at something.
California State University
Island Maracas
A great multicultural art lesson that also connects visual art to music. Students create a set of paper mache maracas emphasizing rhythm and expression in the painting details. Upon completion students will have the opportunity to try...
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Woodwind Instruments and Pitch
In this lesson, pupils will enjoy making their own woodwind instruments. They will also discover how the instruments change pitch based on the length of the airpipe.
Other
Rhythm Web: Coffee Can Drums
Learn how to make a percussion instrument using a coffee can. This site provides instructions for making the coffee can drum. You can also listen to audio clips of coffee can drums being played in various ways.
Text Project
Text Project: Fyi for Kids: Horns: The Sound of the Wind [Pdf]
This FYI for Kids (Volume 2, Issue 7) article is about horn musical instruments. It explains how they work, materials they have been made from, what they are used for, and even how students can make a simple one for themselves.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Slavery & the Making of America
Using primary documents, oral histories, and other historical resources, discover how the arts of Africa, Europe, and pre-Civil War America influenced the culture of enslaved African Americans.
PBS
Pbs Kids: Sid the Science Kid: Sandbox Symphony
Make an interesting musical composition by choosing from a menu of traditional and nontraditonal instruments.
Bill Nye
Bill Nye: Tube Kazoo
This tutorial from Bill Nye explains how to make a kazoo out of a cardboard tube.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Science Snacks: Straw Oboe
Try making this straw oboe to explore the resonance characteristics of the sound it makes.
Other
Huayu World: Global Chinese Language and Culture Center
Good resource for exploring Chinese culture and language. Learn about Taiwanese lantern riddles, Chinese folklore, clothing, poetry and fables, papercutting, Chinese New Year, and Chinese festival and every-day cooking. Multimedia makes...
Other
The Mudcat Cafe: Bongos, Banjos, Fiddles and More
Use this site to learn more about how to construct bongos, banjos, fiddles and more.
Michigan Reach Out
Michigan Reach Out!: Making a Shoe Box Guitar
This site provides an experiment where students create a guitar to discover what variables will change sound.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Strum Along
Music and sound are two different concepts that share much in common. Determining the difference between the two can sometimes be difficult due to the subjective nature of deciding what is or is not music. The goal of this activity is to...
Other
Creative Kids at Home: Water Chimes
Learn to make your own water chimes with the instructions included on this website. Kids will enjoy making their own music with this easily made instrument.
Michigan Reach Out
Sounds Like Science: Kazoo
At this site explore the energy transfer that is involved in making sound through playing a kazoo.This activity is wonderful for both science and music teachers.
Michigan Reach Out
Michigan Reach Out!: Drums (Sounds Like Science)
This site is provided for by Michigan Reach Out. Students experiment with the variables of force, pitch and volume after making a drum.
Maryland Science Center
Maryland Science Center: Diy Kazoo [Pdf]
Instructions for how to make a kazoo. Also explains how the vibrations from humming create the sound.
Other
Dayton Art Institute an African Slit Gong
Art and music are very much related. In fact, the African culture often times designed fun looking instruments like the gong on this website. Includes directions on how to make your own gong.