Monthly Freebie: Music by Numbers ( & colors too)

Hey there ya'll! Wow! I am super, super, excited by all the new visits lately to Our Scribbled Walls! I know  you shouldn't worry about "the numbers", but it sure does mean a lot to me to see so many new friends are stopping by. Totally makes my day!

And because you are all so nice to me, I decided it was time for another freebie! I hope you'll enjoy this one.  I had a bunch of fun designing it!

Our Scribbled Wall's {Free} Music By Numbers Pack:

   

 

So, in my front room there is a keyboard. And it is one of my 3 year olds favorite "toys" He calls it the "piano table" and asks if he can play with it at least 2-3 times a day. While he does enjoy messing with all the different "sounds" it makes,  he mainly just likes to bust-a-groove to the pre-recorded music. ;]

 

Or he comes up with his own songs. This one was from this morning...

"I lost my mom so far awaaaaaaaaaay. I don't see her ever daaaaaaaaaaay!"

I'm getting the feeling he thought I was taking too long to wash the dishes ;].

Anyways! Contemplating his love for his music and rythm, I thought it might be fun to create a learning activity using the "piano table."

And so I did! And I'm sharing it with all of you pretties!

And here is what you will need:

1. Avery Color Coding Labels
2. Purple, Orange, and Black Permanent Markers (or any type of marker, but perm. will work better)

3. Clear scotch tape.

4. A keyboard/piano/toy xylophone

First I took my Avery Color Coding Labels and placed one color on each piano key, as pictured below.  Blue goes on Middle C, purple on D, green on E, Yellow on F,  Orange on G, and red on A.

 

 

 

The labels I bought only came with four colors. Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. I used my markers to color in two of the extra yellow stickers I had. One I colored orange. The other I colored purple. 

I then used my black sharpie to write in the numbers, 1-6, starting with Blue. I then put small strips of scotch tape over the top of the color coding stickers, in hopes that it will keep them looking "nice" longer.

A 3 year old will be playing with this... so we'll see ;].

 

 

 

This is where the free printable comes in (isn't it cah-yute?!). Using the colors & numbers, I created some song cards that you can print, cut, and laminate. The idea is that the children, following the song cards from left to right, will see the blue number 1 on their song card, find the corresponding key on the keyboard and play it.

As they press the keys in sequence, they will end up playing a song. In this case, either ' Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,' 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,' or 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm.'

The songs are condensed, as I was designing this with my little boy in mind. He doesn't really know his numbers or colors that well yet, so although none of these contain the full song it should still take him a good amount of time to figure them out.

 

 

 

If you all ended up liking these enough, however, I may consider making more. Either more songs, or full versions of the songs? I guess you'll have to let me know!

 

All in all, I am totally thrilled with how this activity turned out. It ended up being so much more than I had intended. My main focus in creating this was to help my son learn his colors and numbers, using music (something he really enjoys) as the medium.

 

But this activity ended up being much more versatile than I had realized! It covers multiple learning objectives using multiple learning styles.

It is tactile. It is auditory. It is visual. It is gross-motor. It teaches discrimination, recognition, colors, numbers,counting, hand eye coordination, legends, and well... I could go on! I'd call that a win!

 

Oh my neeeeeerdy teacher talk. ;]

 

Anyways, I hope you all find this useful! It has been a fun activity for Kay and I to sit down and do together. I'll point to the first number on the song card and ask him if he recognizes it. If not, I'll remind him. He'll repeat the number back to me. We find the number on the keyboard and play it. 

 

And the best part about it? Is that he is having fun, even admist all this crazy "learning" business.

 You can download the song cards, here.

(Note: For some  reason when you open this file, google docs is displaying it incorrectly. If you print it, however, it will print correctly. It also should download correctly. Sorry it is being so silly! I've re uploaded it several times, but it keeps doing the same thing.)

 

 

Hope you all have a great weekend! Maybe with some awesome activites planned! As for us, I think we'll be stinking around home. Which, to me anyways, sounds pretty fantastic. I like going absolutely nowhere. Sometimes. =]

A Cheap Paint Palette

So. This morning? I had this brill idea.

Well, at least I thought it was brill. Knowing my luck, probably everyone has already heard of or done this before. But it was new to me. And it totally came out of my own little brain, too! I didn't even have to look at Pinterest ;).

Well... kinda. =P

This morning, Kay and I have been doing art. Lots of art. We've done wax paper collages using tissue paper. We've done wax paper collages using crayon shavings. And then, Kay wanted to paint using his easel. And he wanted to paint using every-single-one of the paint colors we own.

Blaaaah! We don't  have a paint palette to hold all that paint. Normally, I just use a plastic plate. But that wouldn't fit very well on his easel. And we usually only do 3-4 colors at a time.  But then I remembered another project I had done before, that was Pinterest inspired.

In my color activities drawer, I have an egg carton. It is pre-painted with a different color in each "egg slot". It has a slot for every single paint color that we own (score!). I had made it a few months ago to do a color scavenger hunt, via this post right hurr.

But, fancy that... the carton was the perfect size for our art easel! And it ended up making a perfect paint palette. Yay me! Better than that, however, it ended up being a great activity for color review.

I put a towel down on the floor, and let Kay take each paint bottle and find and fill its corresponding spot in the egg carton. This ended up being a fantastic way to get my son interested in colors. He normally has no patience for identifying colors. And yet this time around it was  "Hmm, where does this one go? Is this red? Oh, this is green. There are two browns!"

(Stacking the paint bottles he had already used)

And while he still kept calling green, "That ones blue!!!", I think it was a success overall. Especially because once he was done filling our new 'paint palette', he also got to paint. =] That makes for one happy little boy.

How about you guys? Any fun/cheap/brill art ideas that you've come up with lately? Has everyone already heard of/done this before, and I just missed the train?  Boy, that'd be embarrassing. Would you blame me if I didn't admit that to my son? I like to look cooler than I really am...;)