Jun. 24, 2008

Nature Project ~ Seashell Music Makers

With summertime officially started as of June 20th and the call of the beach beckoning for you to come and play how can you say no!? I can't, and I've never heard any protest from the children either *grin* With every beach visit (unless it is clearly posted not to remove any shells, wildlife etc. from that beach) we come home with a slew of shells, rocks, colorful kelp pieces, the occasional crab and and bunch of odds and sods :) We've even been known to coil up those HUGE bull kelp and stuff them in the car to make kelp dolls with later. LOL. But what do you do with all of those shells?? They really do tend to pile up by the end of the season! I've come up with a fantastic idea.... we're making music makers this year, sort of similar to morrocas but without handles :)


This is a great 'seek & find' game to play at the beach because you need to find completely intact clam shells that fit together nicely without to much of a gap around their edges when they close and you can use this as a little learning exercise with the little ones to because you can get them to sort them into piles of smooth and rough textured shells and big and little shells. Older children can even go further by grouping them by their different species by sight and then check how well they did with the help of a good seashell handbook. After you get home let the children raid the pantry and craft drawers for items to hide away inside your shells to create musical sounds. Above you can see what we found for ours. Personally I love the sound that the large jingle bells made the best :)


Be gentle when you open your clam shells because as they dry their hinges tend to become a little brittle, so don't force them open to wide or you'll end up with a broken shell. Don't worry though they can take some pressure :)


My 4 year old picked all of the smallest items to fill her shells with so that she cold transfer everything from the bowls piece by piece.


It takes quite a while to fill a large clam shell one grain of rice at a time *grin*.


After we got our shells all filled I pulled out my trusty LePage speed set epoxy. Use a thick piece of cardboard or some heavy tinfoil to mix your epoxy on. Craft popsicle sticks work fantastic for mixing and applying your glue with to.


Spread a layer of your glue along the open edge of your clam shell and then hold firmly shut until it starts to firm up. This only takes a minute or so and is completely hard in about 5 minutes.


We had a few shells that had some larger gaps on the sides that needed filling so that we didn't lose our fillings :) The easiest way to do this is to wait until your epoxy is starting to set on your work surface. It will get really thick and stretchy and now you can use it like gum and stretch it over top of the large openings without worrying about it running inside of the shell and gluing your music making items to.

And that's it! They can shake until their hearts content :) We made a little video of what ours sounded like. You may need to turn off the bird sounds on my left hand sidebar so you can hear them better. Have fun making some of your own!