Make music while sharing Latin-American culture

The National Association for Music Education has named March “Music in Our Schools Month”. But those in a preschool classroom know … music is prevalent (and welcome) at anytime!! Yesterday, I shared how children can make a quiet rattle that helps teach kids to practice the art of listening. Today’s instrument is called a “guiro”!

BE A GUIRO HERO – MAKE MUSIC WHILE SHARING LATIN-AMERICAN CULTURE AND LANGUAGE

Creating a simple guiro can be a fun way to share Latin-American culture, a bit of Spanish language, and music-making skills at the same time. A guiro is any small percussion instrument that has ridges which are scraped or rubbed creating rhythmic patterns. The craft below shows you how to make one from an unsharpened pencil, a recycled water bottle (with ridges) and some string or other decorating material. It’s easy, fun and sounds great! You can see, hear and color a guiro as well at the link below.

When you’ve completed your instruments, you can play them along with any simple songs in Spanish such as the counting song: uno, dos tres amigos (one and two and three good friends) or try the Spanish version of the Itsy Bitsy Spider (La Araña Pequeñita). Or what about or La Cucaracha? Below you’ll find a link of a video of my version of La Cucaracha with Spanish and English lyrics, complete with dancing cockroaches (cucarachas) that actually play their guiros!

SEE, HEAR OR COLOR A GUIRO: 
www.dariamusic.com/guiro.php

MAKE A GUIRO INSTRUCTIONS: 
www.dariamusic.com/make_Guiro.php

La Cucaracha Video (with Spanish and English Lyrics) 
www.vimeo.com/dariamusic/la-cucaracha

And here’s one more musical instrument that you can make in your classroom …. a whimsical washboard!

Award-winning children’s performer, DARIA (Daria Marmaluk-Hajioannou) has five cd’s that have won national honors. She has the most awesome job of traveling the world to sing for kids and peace. Her website; located at dariamusic.com, was given a 2009 Parents Choice Award for its musical and cultural content. Read more about Daria. Images used here with permission from Daria.