Music Maker: Toys for your budding musician
Baby is probably already a big music fan, and now that hespanis>is growing bigger, it might be time to upgrade his musical toys. Some of these toys are the real deal – starter instruments, if you will – and allow your little one to shake and pluck and strum to his heart’s content. Both the training-wheels instruments and the more just-for-fun type of toys are great for young toddlers who will have plenty of fun just messing around – even if their styles lean more toward noise than elegance. What’s great about these toys, though, is that they’ll grow with toddlers once they start to take more interest in experimenting and playing something a little more musical-sounding.
Melissa and Doug Band in a Box
These wooden and metal percussive instruments come in a set that allows Baby to be his own rhythm section. Get ready for some crashes, bangs, and booms!
Source: Target
Fisher-Price Tape Recorder
The first step toward your little one’s immensely successful recording career, this tape recorder toy allows him to sing and dance along to pre-programmed music, and even record his own voice!
Source: Target
Melissa & Doug Learn-to-Play Xylophone
This xylophone is great for Baby when he is just interested in banging away with the wooden mallets, but it will also give him the chance to start playing simple children’s songs once he can follow and play along with the included song cards with color-coded musical notations.
Source: Melissa & Doug
Wooden Beginner Kazoo
This simple wooden kazoo lets Baby hum and buzz, exploring sound and melody as helearns to use his mouth and fingers in new ways.
Source: Target
B. toys Meowsic
This silly toy – a keyboard that features a wide-grinning kitty – has tons of ways to play. Not only can your little one tickle the ivories (or rather, the cat teeth) to make piano and even bell, banjo, organ, and meowing sounds, but he can also use the microphone to sing along and even record and play back music.
Source: Amazon
First Act Mini Guitar Ukulele – Frozen
This lightweight stringed instrument is a great way to introduce Baby to the guitar. Decked out with some favorite Disney heroines, it’s meant for young ones with little hands to get used to strumming and plucking away and excited about producing real string sounds.
Source: Target
This oversized piano mat allows your toddler to move his body – jump, pound, and dance around – to make music, and can then be packed away once the dance party is over.
