Co-op Activities - March 19, 2013

I participate in an informal co-op with two other moms, where we basically trade off hosting each others kids  on a weekly basis.  It was my turn to host the big kids (who are now all 5 or almost 5), so I thought I might try some music activities with them.

Ages: 3 five-year-olds (well one is almost 5), 1 three year old

Plan:

Making Ice Cream - Peanut Butter Chocolate 

Bongo making with balloon tops if we can find enough containers.
http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2012/05/boppin-on-diy-bongo-drums.html
Learning Rhythms with the percussion instruments

Lego building (because the legos have been hiding in RJ's room for too long since L's birthday party in early February) - maybe they could design their own lego instrument models?

How it went: 

Co-op was significantly shorter than normal with our friends coming over later than planned, so I made the bongo drums with RJ and L.  The kids didn't really want to decorate them when we started and wanted to go straight to the drumming, so I admit that I ended up doing a lot of the work, especially putting the balloons over the canisters.  Unlike the version made in the website I cited for my inspiration, we did not use duct tape to hold on the balloons, opting instead to cut the center out of the lid, using only the rim to hold the balloon on.  The boys helped, but this was definitely not as hands on as I would've liked, until they started to play them at least!

I ended up making the ice cream on my own due to lack of interest, the legos and other toys being the bigger draw today.

We never really got around to learning rhythms, either, as the kids really just wanted to have some free play with their limited time, and I didn't want to push them into doing anything they weren't into.