Play with Sound with the Junk Jam Music Game

Since we were talking about doing taste tests to explore the sense of taste, I thought it would be fun to look at ways to explore other senses as well. When it comes to learning about sound, music and rhythms are a great place to start.

This Junk Jam idea from Mosswood Connections (which came from the Exploratorium in San Francisco) is really simple to set up and uses trash to help kids play with and learn about sound.

You can play with matching rhythm, exploring pitch, counting as you hit different bottles, exploring how filling containers with different things (rice, beans, water, air) causes them to make different sounds, writing numbers on the containers and writing a song based on the order you play the bottles and more.

These containers are great to keep around and use as recycled instruments even when you’re not playing the game, and your kids will have as much fun with them as they do with purchased musical instruments.

Do you play any musical/sound games with your kids? I’d love to hear about them.

[Photo via Mosswood Connections.]There are lot’s of music learning resources available online too. Check out these Music games and Learning tools and Music Learning Flash Cards.

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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