Musical Sticks

We have a small playground in our neighborhood a couple blocks away that we walk to when we don't go to our favorite park in town.  Aidan wanted to show his new little brother the swings and the climbing structure so we strolled around the corner one morning.

Aidan is a collector.  It never fails when we are outside that he will eye up and find "perfect sticks," or interesting looking rocks somewhere on the ground.  There are several trees at this playground, and handfuls of sticks pining to be discovered by a child's hand.

Aidan quickly spotted a couple of sticks when we arrived and decided they would be useful to make music. He began banging them on the pole supports, inviting me to make music too.  I took the skinny stick and joined in on the rhythm, mentioning to him that even though I was hitting the same object, the sound I was making was different than his.  He tried it out for himself, smiling at me as he listened.

We continued to experiment with sounds by using different sized sticks and objects, discussing the materials they were made out of, and how their size produced different sounds.

We had a mini concert echoing down the street for a little while, and Aidan still has his sticks.  He pulled them out the other day for an impromptu drumming session on some overturned sand buckets, yet another transformation the simple stick has made at our house!




If you have a child that admires the potential a stick can bring to their play, check out this adorable book Not a Stick.  It's a simple and quick read that I feel children as young as two would even enjoy, because there are many ways a stick is not a stick!