With Cinco de Mayo celebrations happening all this past weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about Latin American instruments. The guiro is an excellent instrument for celebrating this culture and for learning about rhythm and sound. (Click HERE for a previous Top 10 Tuesday activity entitled “Celebrating Mexican Culture with the Guiro.”)
On this Tuesday, I thought it would be fun to make an easy home-made preschool-friendly version of the guiro. Typically, they are made from wood or from gourds. A water bottle with grooves can be the easiest and quickest inexpensive substitute, however.
Here’s what you will need to complete the activity:
(1) A water bottle with grooves.
(2) Non-sound producing “stuff” to fill the bottle with. This is just to add color and make it a bit more interesting. Some ideas would be colorful pompoms or shredded paper.
(3) Various household items to scrape the water bottle with just like you would scrape a guiro with its stick. I like to pick items that I know will produce different sounds like a craft stick, a plastic comb or a wire whisk.
Once you have filled your water bottle, try out as many different items as you can find around the house to scrape it with. Turn on some fun Latin music and rock out while playing your home-made Latin guiro. Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” is fun for little ones to party to. Here is a link for the song on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p47fEXGabaY
I hope you have enjoyed today’s Top 10 Tuesday activity. Check back every Tuesday for more musical fun. For a complete list of the Top 10 Tuesday musical instruments under $40 that will help promote music education in the home, click HERE. For an archive of previous Top 10 Tuesday musical activities, click HERE.