As our school closed its doors in March, students of Chief Napew Memorial School lost the opportunity to explore the magical world of music. The school has become the place where kids have a chance to experiment with musical instruments and develop a passion for music and unfortunately, without access to the school kids have not been able to continue their pursuits.

In response to this, our school has been sharing suggestions through our school Facebook page that has given suggestions to our early year students on how they can pursue music through common household items. We have chosen our students aged 3-6 as our target audience because we want to instill music in their lives on a daily basis and provide opportunities for parents to play with the kids. Play and exploration is the root of learning in our early year’s program and playing music with household items is the perfect method of unlocking creativity and expression for the little ones.

Our first musical challenge/suggestion was transforming a comb and tissue paper into a music synthesizer. All the kids need to do is wrap a few layers of tissue paper around a comb, hold it up to their lips, and hum to create sound. With parental engagement through demonstration, young ones can play name that tune and begin to make their own unique songs. With the creation of several comb synthesizers, you now have a band ready to perform.

We will continue to provide suggestions and videos to our early year’s students and parents. Our next phase of encouragement of home based musical experimentation is the development of videos to be shared with our CNMS community that helps to inspire families to play music together.

Tim Biggins teaches music at Chief Napew Memorial School in Pierceland, SK.