Who doesn’t love a good homemade musical instrument? The idea I have for you today is a super fun one! But first, the unnecessary backstory. 

Last year, we started doing music lessons for the kids. Little Norah chose piano, Ben electric guitar, and Sam drums. You can imagine how loud my house has been. We decided to take the summer off from lessons, but with the new school year almost here, we are diving in again.

I asked the kids if they would like to do the same instruments, and they all would… except Ben. Ben is going to switch from the electric guitar to the flute.

Why the flute? I have absolutely no idea. As far as I know, we do not know a single soul who plays the flute, he has not seen the flute being performed, nor has he ever seen a flute in real life. But one of the coolest things about homeschooling is the option for him to try something he is interested in without any judgment at all. 

Day one of the flute was trying to make a noise out of the mouthpiece. Who knew how tricky this was?! Well, wouldn’t you know, our newest Family Unit Study has just come out: Musical Instruments! And within that Family Unit Study, we make a homemade flute. 

This homemade flute is perfect for practicing that important first skill of blowing just right to make a sound out of the mouthpiece.

Introducing the newest addition to our line-up of Family Unit Studies: Musical Instruments! Learn all about the four families of instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Then, have a blast creating your own instruments to experiment with sound. This unit also explores some of the elements of music as well as the composers Greig and Vivaldi!

What is a Family Unit Study?

But first… what exactly is a Family Unit Study?

This unit study, like all of our ever-growing library of unit studies, takes one big topic—Musical Instruments—and breaks it down into ten manageable, bite-sized learning topics. This format gives you the freedom to dive into learning at a pace that works for your family.

Each of the ten topics included with a unit study contains everything you need for that topic, including:

• a curated YouTube video,
• suggested information to read,
• a “what’s happening” section,
• an interesting fact,
• a discussion questions
• literacy and math extension questions,
• and an ultimate-can’t-be-beat hands-on activity!

Perhaps you do one topic per day, perhaps one per week. Whatever suits your fancy! You can learn about music and instruments and explore a topic from start to finish in about 1-2 hours.

Get a FREE Family Unit Study Sample

Want to see what our unit studies are like? You can download a sample from the Musical Instruments Family Unit Study right here:

How to Make a Homemade Flute

Alright, now for the homemade flute.

This homemade flute could not be easier to make. Simply take four plastic water bottles and fill them up with water: one empty, one 1/4 full, one 1/2 full, and one 3/4 full. You can add some measuring into this activity and have your children tape the bottles at the proper spots.

You might just notice that our flutes were not filled up that way. You see, it had been a very long day. I wanted to make this flute for Ben but realized we didn’t have food coloring. Given, that is unnecessary, but pretty. So I tried to mix some paint into the water. It did not work well. 

Next, my helper wanted to be the taper, but he wanted to use hockey tape—you know, as all flautists would. By the time we were set to make our flutes, I messed up—BUT—they still worked!

In order to make a sound out of your flute, you need to play with your mouth positioning and breath. You are trying to blow over the top of the bottle, but you want your breath to catch in the bottle just a little. You will know when you get it! 

Once you have succeeded, try making a sound out of each bottle and note the differences.

This is a fabulous activity for patience and persistence—and a great way to practice fractions as well.

We had so much fun playing with these flutes! Little Norah worked so hard to get the sound out, and the look on her face when she did was priceless.

I hope you like this simple homemade musical instrument idea. And if you do, you are going to absolutely love my Musical Instruments Family Unit Study! You can purchase it right here.

Thank you so much for reading, my friend!

xo
Sarah