Chances are your kitchen is filled with things you can turn into great musical instruments.

For example, if you have two paper plates, some dried beans or pasta, and a stapler, you have a tambourine! Have your child decorate the bottoms of the plates. Put a handful or two of beans or pasta on the top of one plate.

Cover it with the second plate, which should be bottom-side up. Staple the two plates together all around the edges. Make sure there are no holes big enough for the beans or pasta to fall out of. Now shake! If you want to be fancy, you can staple some streamers to your tambourine.

To make a banjo, use some rubber bands and a small cardboard box with a lid. A shoebox works great. Cut a hole about three inches wide and three inches long in the lid.

Now cut notches on the bottom edges of the lid. Put the lid on the box. Stretch three rubber bands from the notches, over the box, so the rubber bands cross over the hole. Tape them to the box so they don’t move. Strum the bands to make music.

For even easier instruments, fill unbreakable containers halfway with beans or pasta and glue or tape the lids shut. Children love to shake these. Empty boxes with wooden spoons make great drums. And a small cake rack can be a percussion triangle. Give your child a spoon and show her how to strike it.

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