Native American Inspired Instruments

(Native American) Music to My Ears

This time I teamed up with one of our amazing music teachers!  She is currently teaching our 7th graders about Native American music.  They are learning about and creating their own Native American inspired chants in her room, and in my room, they created their own instruments to use along with those chants.  We started by talking about the instruments, what they look like and what they how they were traditionally used.  My students then used recycled objects such as paper towel rolls, water bottles, etc to create their objects.  We discussed how we were using recyclables since a big part of the Native American culture was not being wasteful.

The students were asked to incorporate at least four different media, Native American symbolism (they were given a hand out full of symbols) and should resemble the instrument in shape/form and concept.  They had free reign over a variety of art materials and I loved to see the variety of work the kids came up with.  We filled the rain sticks and rattles with rice and did our best to stretch fabric over the homemade drums. Everything came out looking (and sounding) great!