15 minutes outside 365 days a year, what a challenge! I consider myself to be a nature girl and even I am awed by the commitment Gina from famiglia&seoul made this year. She writes:
I realize how fast time does fly, I want to savor every minute that I have with my son and focus on enjoying our times together as a family. In pointing myself in that direction, I have been trying to kick the habit of watching too much TV. It eats up that precious time we have together. Read the full post.
We are lucky enough to have Gina sharing a post on one of her many outdoor adventures. Find a fun tutorial below on how to make musical instruments from nature walk treasures and upcycled materials.
This is the book that inspired her quest, 15 Minutes Outside: 365 Ways to Get Out of the House and Connect with Your Kids. Gina explains:
This book is a must-have if you are a mom that loves to be outdoors, or aspires to be. It challenges the reader to spend at least 15 minutes outside with your children each and every day. It is divided by seasons and contains useful tips, along with structured and unstructured activities to do during those times.
Have fun!
Does anyone else have a love of music? What about nature? My son and I have both. If you stop by my blog, famiglia&seoul, you will discover how I chronicle the outdoor activities and adventures of my family in the form of a diary, written to my son. I do this in hopes that as Grady gets older, he can look back to see how important it was to spend time together as a family, nurturing the soul during those early stages of development. I am thrilled to be sharing a new creation of ours on Let's Lasso the Moon... a favorite of mine!!
Lately, my son and I have been spending quite a lot of time outdoors, enjoying the beautiful weather that we have been fortunate to have. I decided to combine his two greatest loves, nature and music, into one project that he can go back to enjoy when the mood strikes him. We've been working on constructing musical instruments that are made out of items found on our nature walks, as well as with a few upcycled materials. Over this past week, we headed out to a few of our favorite spots and started collecting!
Once we gathered enough materials, we began the construction of the instruments. The first instrument that we made was a tambourine. My son loves to shake anything that makes noise, so this was the perfect place to start. I got two paper plates and allowed Grady to color them on the back side. Once his creation was complete, I asked him to place small pine cones on one of the plates before I stapled them together. When it was done, his face lit up as he shook his brand new tambourine!
The next set of instruments on our list was an assortment of shakers. I thought that we would fill different containers with a variety of materials so that Grady could hear how certain items can create a louder noise than others. The first shaker we made was out of small twigs. We picked out the thicker twigs and painted them green and blue using a baggie. After they were dry, my son dropped them in an old peanut butter container. The other two were made from plastic Easter eggs. He filled one with rocks and the other with timothy hay and all three were glued shut.
The next ones we crafted were exciting for him because they are two instruments he has never seen before. The first was a rain stick. We found two paper towel rolls, taped them together, and filled them with a few broken up pine cones to sound like the patter of raindrops. Before they were filled, Grady painted the outside green and blue using cotton balls as his brush. I folded the sides in and glued them shut before he tried out this new instrument.
Last, but not least, is our xylophone. Using twigs that we collected on our nature walks, I glued them down on a piece of cardboard that was trimmed from a cracker box. We found a drum stick that was long forgotten and went to town! Grady had so much fun running it up and down the xylophone.
What's great about these instruments is my little guy can pull them out anytime he's in the mood to play music. The special touch comes from the fact that they are made from items he collected himself. It was wonderful to see the joy in his face as he put these instruments together and discovered the different ways they made sound. All you need to do is venture out into your own backyard and see what you can find. Your kids may be able to find joy in discovering how music can be made from items they find in nature!
