Water Glass Music
How you can help at home: When you use glasses of water as musical instruments, your child learns about pitch.
With this fun and simple activity, your child can practice playing a familiar tune, and might even create his own song.
What You'll Need
- Three water glasses of the same size
- A metal or wooden spoon
- Three different colors of food coloring and three magic markers to match
- A blank sheet of paper
Here's How To Do It
Fill the glasses with different levels of water and tap on them with a spoon.
Help your child to discover what happens when water is added or taken away. She should realize that when water is added the pitch goes up, and when water is taken away the pitch goes down.
Using trial and error, find the water levels that produce notes to simple three-note songs like "Hot Cross Buns" or "Merrily We Roll Along (Mary Had a Little Lamb)." Once you've found the notes, color the water with food coloring using three different colors, one for each glass.
Now your child can be a composer! Help her create her own songs by writing down a series of dashes on a piece of blank paper using three magic markers whose colors match the colors in the glasses. After some practice, gather the family and have a water glass xylophone concert!
Paul Bakeman is a music teacher in Virginia and Teacher of the Year award-winner.
Updated March 2008
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