How to make a DIY outdoor music station for kids.
I've been admiring outdoor music walls and stations for quite some time, especially after building our giant rainbow xylophone last summer. However, the idea of building a permanent structure in my backyard just didn't make sense. I just couldn't imagine a music wall lasting through our horribly long, cold winters. As a result, I wanted to build a temporary outdoor music station. One that I could set up in the spring and take down in the late fall. Well, I managed to come up with a perfect solution for us! And it didn't cost us a dime. Presenting....drum roll...our temporary, recycled outdoor music station that takes only 10 minutes to set up.
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How to Make a DIY Outdoor Music Station for Kids
We've been spending a lot of time working in our backyard, transplanting fifty billion cedar trees to prep for building a garden. Seriously, why did the previous owners of this house plant so many cedar trees?! Anyway, while moving our extremely tattered swing, it dawned on me that the frame would make a perfect frame for an outdoor music station.
See how hideous our swing is? It's been through one too many cold winters and has definitely seen better days.
Yet, by simply removing the swing and adding some metal banging surfaces, we ended up with a delightful little music making space. And the frame itself is even great for making music.
I scoured our garage for any recyclables that we had to make this music station. I ended up finding a rusted cake pan, a green metal flower pot, and some tin cans of various sizes. I also added some jingle bells to the inside of one tin can after seeing how My Nearest and Dearest's music station used them for hers.
Once I had gathered all the metal surfaces, I punched holes into each item using a nail and hammer. The green flower pot already had a hole from where a handle used to be so I didn't have to punch any holes there. Next, I grabbed some 50-lb fishing line (I found it at the dollar store and have a stash in my craft desk for random projects like this) to hang up the materials. I just knotted the fishing line multiple times until it was too big to slide through the hole.
Armed with wooden spoons and a metal whisk, the boys went to town on the new music station.
When hit, the tin cans and pan would swing back and forth a bit. It got quite the reaction from K!
Haha...and you should have seen the other hilarious photos that I took of him. Especially when he figured out how to climb the side of the swing's frame. He stood in all sorts of weird positions with tongue out or puffed cheeks, drumming away. So not only did the boys make music, they also did some gross motor play by climbing the music station. I guess you could say that I made a DIY recycled outdoor and climbable music station.
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i love love this!! i'm trying to think of something we already have that i could use to do this so i don't have to go find a broken swing :D ~ maybe our old broken soccer goal? it may be a little too broken for this.. thanks so much for the inspiration! i work at a natural food store that recycles and have been hankering to use some of the bigger tin cans for something just like this!
ReplyDeleteHappy to inspire! Hopefully you find something that will work for your frame.
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