One morning, David came running to me and said,"Mummy, I want to play xylophone!" I was wondering why he had the sudden interest, then I thought it could be due to the xylophone image we have on one of our letter X resources.
"But we don't have a xylophone!" I replied. "Wait... maybe Mummy can make a xylophone for you. Let me see..."
And so a simple request to play on a xylophone resulted in the set-up below - a water bottle xylophone experiment!
You probably know by now that I collect lots of recyclable things. Glass bottles from bottled pasta sauce, kaya spread and bottled seasonings have been accumulating in my kitchen cabinet. Due to lack of space, I have actually sent some to the recycling bin in my neighbourhood. I kind of regretted doing that when it was time to make this "xylophone" at home. How I wished I could have 8 glass bottles of the same size so I could play the whole scale! It would be much easier to play songs too if there were more notes. Alas! I only had 3 big glass bottles of the same size, and so had to settle for just 3 notes - doh-reh-me.
It took a bit of time calibrating the amount of water in each bottle so it could produce the correct note. More water will produce a lower pitch, and less water will produce a higher pitch. When it was finally done, I took a pair of metal chopsticks and showed David how to make music by hitting the glass bottles. Do you know you can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with just doh-reh-me? It was like an eye-opener for David. He immediately took over and starting playing his own "symphony" :)
Below is a video of how the water bottle xylophone was used to play a song. Enjoy!
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