Making Musical Washboards With Daria

We just love Daria in our home!  Her music and activities inspire my children’s imaginations and creativity!  It is truly the sign of a talented artist when the mention of her name brings new ideas to young minds!

I first “met” Daria via the Kid Blogger Network a little while ago when I did one of my first reviews, Little Songs of The Andes.  She is a talented and creative artist who enjoys travelling the world and promoting an understanding of multiculturalism through her music.

Be sure to check out her Making Multicultural Music Blog as well as Music To Inspire All The World’s Children.  On her site you will find instructions for making your own pow-wow drums, Egyptian sistrums, didgeridoos, gunghroo bells, and so many more inspiring ideas.

You’ll find out about world cultues as well, not just musical instruments.    And this is where today’s craft comes from.

The children had such fun making and creating their musical rainsticks last month and they are still using these with great enthusiasm!

Over the summer Tristan and Kallista were the lucky winners of the monthly giveaway Daria has on her monthly song page and were so happy to receive a pair of kazoos!  They love using these.  Kallista caught on first with the correct humming technique.  Now they keep these close by so they can use them when the feeling hits.

Last summer the children and I were in Larne and decided to visit the Museum and Arts Centre to see the Titanic relics they had on display for the 100th Anniversary of its sinking.  One of these items was a washboard.

The children had never heard of these before, living in the UK in the 21st Century.  They were quite interested in it.  I had some extra clothes with us in case we got caught in the rain, so I brought them out and let Tristan and Kallista see what it was like to wash clothes by hand ‘the old-fashioned’ way.

As you can see, they thought it was quite the novelty and lots of fun!  I’m not so sure they’d still think that if they HAD to do it on a regular basis, but it was a learning experience for them.

As I was going through family photos recently I came across this photo and Tristan was asking questions about it, so I thought it would be fun for him to make one of his own with Daria’s instructions.

How to make musical washboards

While I found some cardstock and cardboard to use the children had the important, fun, and educational job of sorting some elastic bands into their different sizes so we could find the ones we’d need.

While Kallista finished off the elastic sorting, Tristan taped 2 peices of cardstock together and then folded them accordian-style.

Then I gave him a little hand sliding the elastics over the ends to hold the cardstock to the cardboard in every other crease.

Then they both had fun adding some decoration to their musical washboard.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, Daria really inspires the imagination of children and this is one of the ways it happened with this craft.  Before we’d even finished up the musical washboard, I was cutting the backing piece for the washboard from the end of a corrogated cardboard box and some of the paper ripped off the box.  Tristan saw the little ripples and thought that would also make a great “washboard”!

Then a day or two later Kallista saw a plastic bottle that I was rinsing before it met the recycling box for disposal.  She saw the ridges along the side of the bottle and hollered out that it was also a “washboard”!  So now we have 3 musical washboards to choose from for musical fun!

Kallista loves music, and gets right into it!

If you enjoy making musical instruments with/for your children, check out these other great things we’ve made:

• Musical Rainsticks
• Plastic Tube Shakers
• Jingle Bell wrist/ankle bands

Or browse through our music page for more ideas to get your foot tapping.

What is your favourite musical instrument?