Learn About Drumming
By Dawn W. Dubbs
|
|
This 4-year-old kept everyone dancing!
|
|
Learning Materials
|
Books to Read With Children
|
|
Arts Experiences
Listen to drummers. Invite drummers and drum makers in your community to demonstrate their drumming and drum making skills. Ask them to explain how drums were used in the past to communicate with far-away neighbors. Request that they demonstrate how drums may be decorated with symbols that have personal meaning. Follow up with a group thank-you letter to the visitors. Move to drums. Ask: How would your footsteps—walking, skipping, galloping, running—sound on drums? Have children move to the sound of drums. Slow beat-walk. Faster beat-run. Fastest beat-gallop. Create a drum dance. Create drums. Children make and decorate their own drums using clean recycled containers. Create patterns on the drums with construction paper shapes, markers, crayons, and colored pencils. Use sticks as drum sticks. Sing! If possible, read the story and play a recording of “Abiyoyo” (the music is in the back of the book). Teach children the song. Add instruments, such as drums and rattles, while singing. Hear Samuel Williams sing and tell the story on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liO3zbjgt4E Compare and contrast sounds. Describe and discuss loud and soft sounds. Play loud and soft drum rhythms. Ask children to show what they hear by using large movements (arms outstretched?) for loud sounds and small movements (toe touching?) for soft sounds. |
Invent rhythms. Beat name rhythms (syllables) on tables or floors—Ab-i-yo-yo, Lou-is-a. Count the drum beats for each name and arrange children in name groups of 1 drum beat, 2 drum beats, or 3 drum beats.
Echo rhythms. Beat out simple, traditional children’s song/nursery rhyme rhythms, such as “The Wheels on the Bus” or “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” Ask children to echo the rhythms. Beat out a rhythm and challenge children to figure out what rhyme it is. Repeat rhythms. Play Follow the Leader with rhythm. Teachers or children tap out a rhythm pattern and children repeat. Call and response. After comparing the way people communicate today with the way drums were used to communicate in the past, create simple call and response conversations: Good morning. Response: Good morning. How are you? Response: I am happy! Enjoy books! Read Jungle Drums to learn about the smallest wart hog in Africa and his magic drums. Look carefully at the illustrations to see how jungle animals change when drums are played. Discuss how we can all be happy with how we look and what we have. The humor and creativity of this book appeal to adults and children alike! Read Sosu’s Call to find out how a boy with disabilities saves his whole village by using his drum to warn them of approaching flood waters. Discuss ways that young children can be good neighbors who support everyone in their villages. |
When children beat the drum, the bus jumps — a physics experiment with vibration.
|
Explore the physics of sound. Observe how little pebbles or other items dance when placed on a beaten drum. Compare that vibration to how a humming or aah sound feels when felt with fingers on the neck.
|
Explore objects outdoors to find what items make satisfying drum sounds. Discuss and compare what the children find to create drumming sounds.
|
|
What Children Learn
Literacy. Children hear stories, sing songs, recite rhymes, verbally compare and contrast experiences, write a group thank you letter, and learn new vocabulary. Math. Children count, sort, and match rhythms. Children create patterns based on drum rhythms with letters, numbers, sticks, and construction paper shapes. Social studies. Children meet local performers and artists and learn the history of African drumming. Science. Children observe the effects of vibration, experience vibrations they create in their throats, and explore outdoors to find effective drumming surfaces. Social skills. Children discuss ways to be helpful to their neighbors and work together to create drum dances and drum call-and-response conversations. |
Curriculum Connections
Construction & Creativity (math, social studies, free play, art/traditional crafts, music, Rwandan culture) Investigation Outdoors (science/environment, active play, nature) Literacy & Imagination (storytelling, books, rhymes, journals, write, pretend play, experience stories, history, listening) |
Galimotos
Young Children Create
Something New From Something Old
What materials did Bruno used to create his galimoto?
|
Learning Materials
|
Books to Read With Children
|
Arts Experiences
Perform a fingerplay.
Hands are important when creating objects out of recycled items. Chant and act out a fingerplay about hands. Open Them, Shut Them Open, shut them; open shut them Give a little clap. Open, shut them; open shut them Lay them in your lap. Creep them, creep them, Slowly upward, Right up to your chin. Open up your little mouth, But do not let them in. Open, shut them; open shut them Give a little clap. Open, shut them; open shut them Lay them in your lap. Use ordinal numbers to count. Count how many places Kondi visited to get enough wire for his Galimoto. Discuss the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth place he went to gather his wire.
Seriate sticks. Kondi gathered all types of wire, from thin to thick. Children gather sticks and arrange them from the thinnest to the thickest. Observe crafters. Invite makers of galimotos or similar original objects to demonstrate how they create the toys, baskets, and other objects from wire. Ask questions about how they started up as wire artists and what they do with the objects after they are made. If parents are willing, invite them to share the story of any galimotos they may have at home. Follow up with a group thank-you letter to the visitors. |
Invent something new out of something old. Children use their collections to make new items. Use markers, beads, ribbon, yarn, string, raffia, and fabric pieces to make their creations personal.
Exhibit inventions. Display children’s inventions and plans. Label them with cards telling about the artist and the invention. Invite parents and other adults to come and view. Classify and sort. Children collect natural materials—indoors and outdoors—to and add them to recycled items. Sort items by size. shape, weight, and color. Brainstorm. Pass a simple item such as a stick or box around a circle. Children hold the item and describe how it could be used for pretend or real. For example, a stick could be a fishing pole, bat, horn, or cane. Plan. Children examine the natural and recycled items that were collected. They draw pictures in their journals of something they could make by combining some of the materials provided. |
|
What Children Learn
|
Curriculum Connections
|