Fourth Grade African Drums

 This was the last project that the 4th graders did for the year. I will have the finished ones on display at the beginning of the year, when we go back to school in August.

I found the lesson plan on the Crayola website: African Drum

We began the project by looking at different examples of African drums.

Then I had them do a couple of sketches in their sketchbooks to show what they wanted their drum to look like.

They traced 2 circles onto muslin and cut them out. We used fabric markers to color the fabric and then I had them use a pencil to punch holes around the outside of the fabric so that they would be able to string their drum at the end.

The drums were made with 2 bowls. I used paper/cardboard bowls and they colored them with a random assortment of markers that I had collected throughout the year.

I had them punch 2 holes into the bottom of each bowl and then they tied the bowls together, so that they would not move.

When they were ready to string their drum, I had them glue the muslin to the bowl (the first class didn't do this, and had all kinds of difficulty with the fabric moving and falling off) and then they used string that I had left over to string the drums.

The very last step was to paint the fabric with a mixture of glue and water so that it would harden the fabric. Pin It