Chuck Stoffle

We wanted to make a set of classroom shakers for music.  So three of my kindergarten classes took on the challenge of making these great instruments.  We started with empty plastic bottles, filled them with beans and glued the lids on (very important unless you want to “spill the beans”).  Then we glued on small pieces of tissue paper and let them dry.  To tame the paper i.e. keep it flat after gluing, I gave them all a coat of water based urethane.  As you can see they turned out great and now we have a complete set for everyone in each of my five kindergarten classes.

This was a fun activity I used in a kindergarten class where we first put puzzles together that were made up of each page from the book then attempted to place the copied pages in order on the white board. Next, the students were assigned one page (with a partner) and chose from small pieces of paper, which had one of the story characters on it, and placed the appropriate characters in the envelope below their assigned picture.  Then, they performed the same activity again but this time with pictures of instruments. They were to determine what sound belonged in their picture and were given the choices of sticks, sandpaper blocks or a shaker.  Finally, we combined the responses from all five classes and came up with the most popular choices.  Each class then decided whether or not the choices were correct.

Students coloured cut out characters matching their choices and acted out the story many times using their characters and also the chosen instruments.  Each student had a role everytime the story was told. The goal was to have them choose the characters, instruments and dramatize the story.