9 ‘Amazing’ Instrument Study Activities For All Ages

Do you know that music lessons in the homeschool can be blended in with a ton of different activities, which will make it really fun and help your kids really engage with the topics covered?

Well, it can and in today’s post, I’m going to show you how a simple instrument study unit can be expanded upon to cover so many different subjects. 

Besides including a printable, I have also provided you with a preview of my brass instruments online unit study. 

First read through this post to see how you can expand your children’s knowledge and then proceed to download the printable and preview the unit (in that order). 

Since I like to use examples when explaining things, for this post I have decided to focus on the Cornet. 

Got it?

Then let’s get started. 

Field Trip Ideas

• Go to an instrument store and see how many different types of brass instruments and cornets, you can have your kids actually touch, feel and play. This will help them to get a feel of each instrument, look at them proportionally and even hear them in person.
• Look out for opportunities to see a brass band, brass orchestra or cornet player perform and take them on a field trip to the performance sometime in the future. 

Research Activities 

• Have older kids research about a famous cornet player.
• Help younger kids to create a short ‘show and tell’ presentation, complete with pictures and posters about the cornet. (Things to talk about will include, the evolution of the cornet, famous cornet players, famous cornet compositions, role of the cornet in the Orchestra and so on). 
• Ask kids to collect images of the different types of brass instruments, and create a lapbook or poster comparing and contrasting each.
• Older kids can do an oral presentation and compare and contrast the cornet to another musical instrument that they are familiar with. 

Hands-On Activities

• Try making a cornet at home with materials you have around like plastic tubing, poster board and more (you can look for short videos on how to do this on YouTube or Pinterest). 

Let’s Go Even Further

• Look on websites like Craigslist and see if anyone in your neighbourhood or surrounding area is looking to off load a cornet and go get it (if you would like to start your own instrument collection for the homeschool). If you do this, your kids can explore the instrument and even attempt to create their own compositions.
• Playing videos or music with cornet and trumpet solos (don’t show them the videos) rather, ask your kids to listen and identify the instrument just by listening to the music only.

The last activity will help to train their musical ear and make them very sensitive to the subtle differences in tone of the cornet and trumpet.  

However, when doing this activity, it is very important to understand that not all kids can easily identify the difference and there are lots of kids who will never be able to tell the difference, even if they do this exercise over and over again. But that doesn’t mean that they are not musically inclined, quite the contrary. Some of us learn very differently from others and can be very musical even though we can’t always make out these subtle differences. 

Please remember, you don’t have to do all of the above exercises with your kids. Instead just pick the ones that you think they will enjoy the most and will be ideal for them, given their age and ability and just focus only on those exercises. 

Now, don’t forget to download the printable I have made available for you and preview the online unit.