We have been busy crafting over the last few days for the 12 Days of Christmas blog hop, hosted by SillySparkles -we have teamed up with 11 other bloggers to bring you an exciting set of crafts and activities linked to the Christmas song - The 12 Days of Christmas.

Today is day 12 -  Twelve Drummers Drumming

Little N hasn't really had much experience with drums as of yet and I wanted to bring drums alive for her before setting about making any with her.

I turned to ProMusic based in Rowley Regis on Powke Lane to give Little N an insight on some 'Drums in action'. ProMusic is one of the best known schools of music in the West Midlands. I actually began learning guitar there two years ago and cant recommend it enough!
Tom Franklin the founder of ProMusic and his team have been delivering instrument tuition for almost a decade and they were very happy to show Little N some 'Drums in action'.

Tom very kindly created his own version of the 12 Days of Christmas on Drums with one of his students, especially for our blog hop:




Little N was so excited after seeing the drums being played - it set a great foundation for our drum crafts:

Making Drums

We have been saving various shaped containers over the last few weeks.
We have large hot chocolate tins, Hero's sweet tins and Pringle tins. Little N loves being creative and getting messy so I knew this activity was going to go down well with her.

The Monkey Drum:




A Monkey Drum is a hand held drum on a stick. You twist the stick in your hands and the beads hanging from string on either side will swing - hitting the drum and making the beat. By changing the pace that you roll the drum in your hands you alter the rhythm. They are very easy to play and are popular world wide. They are also called tic-tac drums and Chinese rattle drums. Little N actually has one of these drums so it was good to have this in view as we set about making one.

Using a wooden spoon, we wrapped a lace with glittered coloured pony beads either side around, before knotting the lace in place. We had some cardboard that we cut out in circles (we drew around a CD) . We cut our two circles and stuck them either side of the spoon.


Once the lace was knotted in place we stuck the laces in place so they were hanging each side of the wooden spoon.


We took this opportunity to do some printing to decorate them using empty toilet roll holders. Once these colourful prints were dry I stuck them to the cardboard, Little N helped to spread the glue. Once it was all stuck in place as glued the discs to the wooden spoons. These turned out great and work really well!
















Marching Drum




No parade would be complete without a marching drum. A local shopping centre of ours is decorated with soldiers holding drums this year. Little N has been fascinated with them as they look pretty magical suspended from the ceilings, covered in twinkly lights. I pointed the drums out to her when we were out shopping. When I told her we were going to be making a marching drum like the soldier she saw at the shops - she was over the moon.
Marching percussion instruments are especially designed to be played whilst on the move with the use of straps and harnesses.


We used our recycled Hero's and Celebration tins to create these drum. Little N had lots of fun marble painting to create the artwork to cover the drums. It was the first time we had done marble painting and she enjoyed pushing them down into the oozy paints and then watching them move around as she tipped the tray up and down.

African Drum




Kwanzaa is a week long celebration which honours African Heritage in African-American culture. It begins on the 26th of December through to the 1st of January. It is celebrated with songs, dances, story-telling, African Drums, poetry, reading, gift giving and a large feast.


We used a recycled Hot Chocolate tin to create our African Drum. Little N and we used colourful, striped paper to cover these drums. In particular Little N enjoyed using the tape dispenser! We then used glittered craft foam to decorate the drums. Little N peeled the backs off the shapes and stuck them to her drum.









After a week of lots of fun crafting and creating our drums it was now time to enjoy playing them!

Activities for Homemade drums

Play along to Music
We put on some of Little N's favourite songs and she enjoyed drumming and singing along. We have drum sticks but Little N wanted to play using the wooden spoons instead.

Play along to a story
Little N has been really enjoying the story 'We're going on a bear hunt' - together we chanted "We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one - what a beautiful day, we're not scared!" - whilst playing the drums. This was a very effective activity and went great with this story - she got so excited!

Copy the beat
We had a drum each. I tapped out a very basic beat and Little N copied. We counted the beats together which helped her when copying the beat.

Listening - Stop, Start, Fast and Slow
This was a great activity to encourage good listening. Little N played the drums and listened out for instructions to play the drums faster, slower and when to stop and start playing again. Me and her Dad also joined in with this and we took it in turns being the one giving commands.

Drums out and about




















When visiting her friend recently she was so excited to see a little drum kit in the corner of the room, after a week of making her own drums and enjoying lots of different activities. She made me chuckle as she started banging the drums chanting "We're going on a bear hunt"!

So there we have it:
1 Drumming Music Video
2 Marching Drums
2 African Drums
2 Monkey Drums
4 Drumming Activities
1 Drums out and about
Totalling 12 for the 12th day of Christmas.

Free Printable lyrics for the 12 Days of Christmas:






































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We have been busy crafting today for the 12 Days of Christmas blog hop, hosted by SillySparkles we have teamed up with 11 other bloggers to bring you an exciting set of crafts and activities linked to the Christmas song - The 12 Days of Christmas.

Today is day 3 - Three French Hens.

We visited a local farm where we had a close look at some Hens and Cockerels. Little N was unsure of the noises the Cockerels were making at first, but she enjoyed watching them walking around their pen, eating and disappearing into their hen house.













When we got back Little N fancied doing a bit of painting.
I clipped some pom poms onto pegs and squirted red, yellow and brown into a painting tray.
I gathered 3 paper plates to link to today's theme - Three French Hens.


Little N dipped the pom poms into the paint and enjoyed printing circles onto the plates. She enjoyed colour mixing and dragging the pom pom around, leaving long trails in the paint.

I also joined in and did a plate too. Little N was really happy to see me getting stuck in and kept looking over to see how I was getting on. She pointed out the colours as we selected them from the tray too.

Once all of the plates were painted we left them to dry.

When they were completely dry we set about making them look a little more like hens.


We began by using straws for their legs. We stuck them onto the back of the plates with lots of sticky tape, Little N loved pulling the tape from the tape dispenser.

We then added some feet to the bottom of the straws. . I sketched out a template which I used to draw around on the card. I only drew around it once and folded the card so when I cut around the template I would also be cutting out the additional feet that I needed.


We printed using sponges on sheets of A4 paper to create the wings. Again using a template, I folded the painted paper in half and cut out the wings so they would be the same shape either side, finishing by cutting them in the middle and sticking them to either side.


It was then time to get to work on the front of the hens. Using white paper circles we used finger tips in black paint to create the eyes, and yellow paper cut into a square, folded in half for a beak.

We used some of the left over painted paper, cut into strips to make the hens comb on the top of her head.

Here we have it:




















Three French Hens.

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