The sound of ocean waves crashing on the shore is very calming to listen to. The sound is often programed on noise machines for soothing babies to sleep and there are endless videos online with hours and hours of beach sounds.

Making your own ocean drum is a fun, easy and technology-free way to bring the soothing sound of the ocean to your finger tips.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Two paper plates

• Tape or hot glue gun (Kids, please only use with a grown-up’s help!)

• Small, hard, bead-like items like dried beans, rice or macaroni to use as noisemakers

• Crayons, markers, stickers, etc. for decorating

The first step is to pour your noisemakers onto one of the paper plates. We used rice which created a nice, even sound. You don’t need a lot-a handful will do the trick.

Next, place the second paper plate upside-down on top of the first first. This will leave a bit of space for the noise makers to shift around inside the drum.

Now you’ll need to tape or glue the plates together. Be careful not to spill during this step. For our drum, we used masking tape. I started by taping four opposite sides of the circle to keep the plates together and then filled in with more tape for reinforcements. I’d put more tape or glue than you think you need, especially if you are using small items as noisemakers-you don’t want anything to spill out!

Once you’ve got everything secure, it’s time to decorate. We used some fun ocean stickers.
You could color the plates blue like water or draw a beach picture. Let your imagination guide you
and just use whatever craft supplies you have at home!

After you’ve finished decorating, your ocean drum is ready to play!
Tilt the drum from side to side to let the noisemakers slide around inside the drum.

Here’s what ours sounds like!

How did your ocean drum turn out? Does it sound like waves breaking on the beach? If you have enough materials, you can make more drums with different noisemakers to create several different ocean sounds! Do bigger noisemakers make louder ocean sounds? What happens when you use more or less items inside the drums?

Let us hear your ocean drum! Tag @musiclibrarybox in your Facebook and Instagram posts so we can check it out!

The materials for this craft were included in our Girl Who Heard the Music box, pictured here. The Girl Who Heard the Music is a picture book biography about pianist Mahani Teave. Mahani left her home on the small island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) at the age of nine to study piano. She returned to the island and created Toki Rapa Nui, the non-profit organization responsible for building the island’’s first music school using trash that was clogging up the waters around the island and washing ashore.