Cajón drums are wood drums native to South America with deeper roots in the Africa. The cajon is a wood rectangular prism, with two thin faces. One of the thin sides, usually the back, has a large hole to allow sound to travel out. The front face can be struck with the hand, mallets orContinue reading “This Week in the Classroom: Cajón Drums”
Category Archives: Music
Making A Makerspace: Top 10 Tools in a Maker’s Classroom (2012)
This year was a big year in the STEaMworks (STEM focus, art driven, work/project centered: the STEaMworks), my self-styled Maker classroom. We (and the Math/Sci Team) built a lot of projects: rockets, rocket cars, derby cars, catapults, simple robots, box-making, bench-making, bridge-building, sail-testing, music making, spirographs, pendulums, 3D prototyping, CAD models, Arduino projects, Alice computerContinue reading “Making A Makerspace: Top 10 Tools in a Maker’s Classroom (2012)”
This Week in the Classroom: 2×4 Xylophone
I ended the year with an exploration of music. I used xylophones, pendulums and windchimes to explore frequency, wavelenght, pitch, volume, etc. I probably should have found a way to incorporate physical waves, but a trip to the beach was out of the question and I met disaster in my attempts at building a waveContinue reading “This Week in the Classroom: 2×4 Xylophone”
This Week in the Classroom: Why Mothers Hate Me On Mother’s Day
As a parent, I know that art projects can be a mixed blessing. Some are breathtaking. Most should go in the circular file. Worse still are things my kids build – they fall apart and break. They take up space. God save me if my sons bring home noise-making pieces of art they have built.Continue reading “This Week in the Classroom: Why Mothers Hate Me On Mother’s Day”
This Week in the Classroom: Diddley Bows
Make: Projects has great instructions on how to build your own diddley bow. Make it safe & keep the rubber side down.
This Week in the Shop: End of Summer Program
The summer program wraps up today. Our summer program acts as an experimental zone, a transitional buffer and a slice of consistency for both teachers and students. Personally, I love summer programs – no grades, no pressure, just the chance to provide as fun and therapeutic educational experience as possible. Anyways, this summer saw the returnContinue reading “This Week in the Shop: End of Summer Program”
This Week in the Shop: Cardboard Prototypes
This week’s word: Prototypes. Brought to you by the letter C for cardboard. What a week! My students spent last week drawing and planning and designing and planning and planning. We got outside this week! My chair group is off to a fast start. Both “makers” have created cardboard prototypes for their chairs, while theContinue reading “This Week in the Shop: Cardboard Prototypes”
This Week in the Shop: The Cajon Drum
This week, I prepped for this summer’s woodshop classes. The students will be building these benches, mending and designing chairs and constructing Cajon drums. I’ve secured enough lumber for the benches, pulling plywood chair designs from various sources and built this example project. Look to the above link for construction details. I finished the sidesContinue reading “This Week in the Shop: The Cajon Drum”
WSC Designs 