Sub-Project: Vegetable Symphony Orchestra

Description: Make your classroom vegetable orchestra and share the output with another school. Compose a piece using the outputs from different classrooms.

Participants will choose from the pile a vegetable which will then be explored first and played with by the group in an instrumental play by the teacher (use a piece of music with a steady beat). Movement can also be incorporated in this activity.

Materials needed

• Vegetables for drums (pumpkin, watermelon etc.)
• Peppers for shakers
• Zucchini or long radish for scraper
• Celery and carrots for sticks
• Onion peels
• Eggplants for clackers
• Beans, rice, peanuts (other material to use in shaker)
• Device to play musical selection

The vegetables are then set on a working surface and explore how to create an instrument that can be played (for younger children the vegetable will already be prepared for them for older children the use of child safe knives may allow them to also join in on cutting). Spend some time exploring the different ways the vegetable can be played, i.e. pumpkin drum (with hands as a drum, carrots as sticks to tap drum, cut and make hollow and play, fill it with material and use as a stirrer, add water and blow with a carrot straw etc.)

Pepper shakers (putting in different materials and shake to hear the sound created)

Eggplant: How many different ways can you play the clacker?

Scraper: If it is scraped with another material does the sound change? Can you use it as a drum etc.?

Onion peels: How can you make sound using them?

Collaborative Project: Why not make a composition with another classroom?If working on this during Christmas season compose your own piece of Jingle Bells with seeds and vegetable instruments and work with another classroom to layer your compositions.

Learning Objective: Exploring how sound is produced through manipulation of vegetables and natural materials to create an instrument that can be played in various ways, producing different timbres, Creatively using vegetables (a natural material) to explore sound.

Time frame:
All year, instruments may vary according to the seasonality of vegetables used