For this month’s musical DIY, I thought I would test out a musical instrument making kit that you can buy from online craft shop, Baker Ross. I say instrument making kit, but really this is an instrument decorating kit. Making DIY wooden clappers that you can play once you have finished decorating them.
Baker Ross are an online craft shop. They do not have a physical presence so you do need an internet connection to be able to shop with them. I generally order direct from them (click here for the Baker Ross website), but you can get their kits from other online retailers like Amazon. Personally I have always found that the price you pay is cheaper when you order direct from their own website. I love a Baker Ross craft kit. They are great little activities to do with the children that fill that odd half hour, or hour during the holidays when you have nothing else planned. I have bought all sorts of kits from them for the children, from seasonally inspired sticker scene kits, like a nativity sticker scene or a Halloween haunted house scene, to wooden birdhouses or big hotels to paint and put together.
There are now quite a few Baker Ross musical instrument DIY kits that you can get for your children. Like all Baker Ross kits they always come in multi-packs rather than singles. If you order from their website pay attention to the quantity you are ordering as there are some packs with large quantities of craft kits, intended I think for schools to purchase. You can see some of the other kits that we did last year here.
DIY Wood Block- Decorate Your Own Kit from Baker Ross
So our Star Wooden Clapper kits – they come in a pack of 4. We got these out over the half term holidays to do when one of my son’s friends who is very into crafts and making things, came over to play. Both of my children and my son’s friend got one of these clappers to decorate and my daughter managed to get her hands on 2 of them! The clappers are made of wood. The top part, used to make the percussive sound of the clappers, is made from 3 large wooden star shapes tied together just at the bottom with a thin piece of plastic. For this kit they come ready assembled so you just have to decorate them- I guess you could use them without decoration if you chose, but for me the decorating is part of the fun.
Just a quick note of caution here before I tell you what we did to decorate the clappers, if you are doing these with small children in the house, please be aware that they are not suitable for under 3s because they may have small parts which could be a choking hazard. It’s not a big thing, but the card packaging attached to a plastic envelope that the clappers are in is secured with staples that could prick small fingers if they aren’t careful with them. and finally there is a packet of silica gel in the plastic package that your children must not put in their mouth.
So, what can you use to decorate the clappers with? We have done a few of these kits in the past and used all sorts of materials to decorate them – paint, washi tape, chalk markers, paint pens and felt tips. Washi tape comes off easily and quickly becomes quite irritating, it takes a good 2 or 3 coats to properly paint these instruments as the wood they use is incredibly porous. I have found, surprisingly, that the best thing to use to decorate these wooden instruments is just felt pens. They work really well.
The boys had been playing video games in the morning on the day we made these clappers and so they decided to do a video game themed design on their clappers. My daughter decided to draw a landscape- I think it looks like cacti in the desert, but I don’t think that was what my daughter was aiming for, and I have no idea what the purple bit is on the one side! They all thoroughly enjoyed designing their own clappers though.
The children spent a happy 15-20 minutes drawing and completing their designs on these Baker Ross wooden clappers, and then they ran off to make up a song that they could sing while playing with their new musical instruments.
These Wooden Clappers are a functional musical instrument, but what do they sound like and how do you play them,? Well, you shake them back and forth so that the 3 Stars at the top of the instrument hit each other and it makes a sort of clapping sound, hence the name. A bit like this:
I bought these clappers direct from Baker Ross and paid £4.95 for a pack of 4, and at the time of writing they are the same price. You can visit the Baker Ross website by clicking on the link below:
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getkidsintomusic.com 