From Karen (USA)

Family Activity:

One day my kids' grandmother told them she and her friends used to make musical instruments out of combs and plastic wrap. They couldn't believe it! My son's birthday was coming up, so I decided to see how many instruments we could make for a birthday band. Here's what I collected.

Materials:

• Plastic comb
• Plastic sandwich bag
• Paper plates
• Colored yarn, Ribbon, colored cord
• Colorful fabric
• Oatmeal box
• Round, plastic herb containers, large and small
• Paper towel and toilet paper tubes
• Buttons, dried beans, beads, pop tabs
• Paper punch, glue

Directions:

Color, paint with acrylic paint, glue on fabric, or glue buttons and any other decorations on the plates and containers. Put noisemakers (beans, etc.) inside the containers. With the paper plates, punch holes around outside of two plates held together, top to top. Put yarn or shoestring through the holes to hold the plates together. Right before you finish, stuff noisemakers in between the plates. Then finish sewing together. Decorate with paint, ribbons, stickers, etc. Then line up the kids and give each one an instrument—drums (oatmeal box), harp (comb and plastic wrap) and all sorts of percussion instruments.