Submitted by Beth Jahn (nee Spreen), Granite Falls, Minnesota
Idea posted April 28, 2003
We are creating an instrument alphabet book. While we are listening to some soothing music, I ask the students to make a giant letter of the alphabet on the carpet. I find that the students really love this activity. They are on-task and doing some serious problem solving (One student said, "Carlos, you need to put your legs so they point towards the piano." If that isn't proof of higher order thinking, I don't know what is!) I am climbing a ladder to take digital pictures of their letters from up above.
After we are done taking pictures of all the letters of the alphabet, I am pasting them into a word processing program. The picture of the student-made letter will be at the top with the text "A is for..." underneath (or whatever letter it happens to be). Then, I am putting pictures of classroom instruments that start with that letter underneath with the name of the instrument printed below it. For instance, our first page will read, "A is for... agogo bell and autoharp."
I will make a copy of the book for each student in the class when it is all finished. We will probably practice "reading" it and then they can read the book to their regular kindergarten class.
I am trying really hard to choose instruments that we have in our classroom, so that they learn the names of what we have. Here is the list of instruments I have currently:
A - agogo bell, autoharp
B - Boomwhackers®, bongo drums
C - cabasa, castanets, claves, cymbals, conga drum, cowbell
D - djembe
E - egg shakers
F - finger cymbals, finger drum, frog rasp, flexatone
G - glockenspiel, goat hoof rattle, gong, guiro
H - hand drum, hand bells
I - ??
J - jingle taps, jingle bells
K - kazoo, keyboard, kokiriko
L - lummi sticks
M - maracas, metallophones, mallets
N - ??
O - ocean drum (we don't have one in our room, but I can't think of anything else)
P - piano, percussion instruments
Q - Q Chord
R - recorder, rainstick, rhythm sticks
S - sand blocks, slide whistle, sleigh bells
T - tambourine, triangle, timpani, temple blocks, thunder tube, tubano
U - ukulele
V - vibraslap
W - woodblock, whip, wind chimes
X - xylophone
Y - ??
Z - ??