Do your young learners love singing, clapping, and dancing to the music? Young kids are natural music lovers. Research suggests that our taste for a specific kind of music gets stronger with age. In other words, when we’re young, we’re tolerant of many types of music.
Listeners of any age appreciate the unexpected when it comes to music. This is why we pay attention when we hear an acoustic song that we are used to hearing with electronic instruments. We also take notice when a female sings a song originally recorded by a man. Mixing things up, especially when it comes to music, is the key to staying interested!
Here is a fun activity to try with your young learners. It includes a drum craft followed by a singing activity.
Make Some Drums
Choose one of the following recipes for making handmade drums with your students.
How to Make a Tin Drum (with tin cans, balloon, and paint)
How to Make Toy Drums and Sticks (cans, felt, hot glue, popsicle sticks, bottle caps)
How to Make a Coffee Can Drum (cans, paper, glue, yarn, material)
How to Make a Toy Drum with a Bucket (bucket, plastic bag, tape, decorating materials)
While your students are crafting, make a large drum for yourself! The teacher’s drum needs to be a bit different. You have to be able to easily open and secure the top again and again so that students can choose paper slips that you will put inside. 
A large decorated coffee tin or paint can covered with wax paper and an elastic (or the plastic lid) would be perfect for the teacher’s drum. Use pencils or chopsticks for sticks. When your drum is complete, cut out these “Change that Tune” paper strips and place them inside. (You could also add some pasta or rice for extra percussion and fun.)
Note: The individual student drums are an optional craft idea, but a teacher’s drum is useful for storing the paper strips. You can pull this activity out whenever your class is singing!
Drumroll, Please
1. Practice a familiar English song with your students. See the list of suggested songs below.
2. Tell your students that they are now going to sing this familiar song in some different ways.
3. Ask for a drumroll from the students! Allow them to make lots of noise with their own drums as one student chooses a slip from the teacher’s drum. (Or, if you just have one drum, give it to a student to beat before choosing a slip of paper.)
4. Sing the song in the new way that the slip of paper instructs (slower, faster, whispering, with actions, etc.).
5. Repeat!
Easy English Songs to Sing with Young Learners
Here are some easy English songs your young students may want to learn.
Happy Birthday
ABC
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
The Wheels on the Bus
You are my Sunshine
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Old MacDonald
I’m a Little Teapot
Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes
An English national anthem (e.g., The Star-Spangled Banner or O’ Canada)
Related
Find this week’s Spotlight lesson in the Project Depot – Writing.
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