One of my favorite musical instruments to explore in the preschool classroom is a xylophone. Â A xylophone is simple in design and can lead to an exploration in sound, color, shape, and of course – music… 
As the children came into the classroom today, they found each center in the classroom filled with different opportunities to explore a xylophone. At the art table, the children explored xylophone painting however, they didn’t paint a xylophone… 
Instead, the children used my homemade xylophone mallets as a paint brush to paint with… 
The DIY xylophone mallets were easily made by hot gluing a pompom to the end of a white baking stick. The sticks came in a package of 20 in the isle where you find cake decorating supplies at the grocery store. Â I made several sets of these DIY xylophone mallets to use around the classroom… 
The idea of this painting process was to use the DIY mallets like you would when you play a xylophone only dipping the mallets into paint first and then playing with them on a piece of paper…. 
Like most things the children do in our classroom, each child had his or her own way of approaching this painting process… 
Some of the children liked to use the mallets to make dots while others preferred to rub the mallets around on the paper… 
I thought more of the children might actually go up and down with them like you would when playing a xylophone, especially since they were exploring xylophones all around the classroom. Â But many of the children were more interested in using the DIY mallets more like they would a regular sponge or paintbrush than a xylophone mallet… 
The pompom on the end of the sticks made a perfect tip for painting. The pompoms held the paint nicely and spread the paint smoothly and evenly around the paper. The DIY mallets were definitely intriguing to the children to paint with no matter which way the children chose to paint… 
You may not be exploring xylophones in your classroom but making and painting with your own “pompom” paintbrushes are definitely worth giving a try! 
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Links to Grow On Making craft stick xylophones Exploring xylophones in preschool
