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During this hands-on activity, learners are briefly exposed to moviemaking and animation, when they create their own thaumatropes.

Learners make bell bracelets, place them on their wrists or ankles, and then dance to the rhythms and sounds the bells make. Many cultures use ankle or wrist bells to make music during dancing.

In this engineering design challenge, learners animate a facial expression and make a machine (zoetrope) that plays the animation back.

In this activity, learners explore sound by constructing an instrument toy that buzzes when you swing it.

In this activity, learners create a traditional Mexican noisemaker (a matraca) using cardboard, craft sticks, and a wooden dowel.

In this optics activity, learners build an animation tool to make mini movies. When you spin a phenakistascope, the pictures move so quickly that your eyes and brain can't separate the images.

Learners explore three-dimensional geometric frames including cubes and tetrahedrons, as they create bubble wands with pipe cleaners and drinking straws.

In this hands-on activity, learners build their own kaleidoscopes and explore how light can reflect of off surfaces such as mirrors, to produce beautiful patterns.

In this activity, learners explore sound by constructing a simple piano out of wood and craft sticks.

In this playful, goopy activity, learners mix two liquids to create a solid (that sometimes acts like a liquid ), using basic household materials such as borax and glue.

In this activity, learners build a figure that moves and "comes to life" when they pull its string.

In this simple and fun activity, learners discover the relationship between vibration and sound by making a squeaky toy instrument out of simple household materials.

In this activity, learners build a musical drum using a cardboard tube, plastic wrap, and beads.

Break open that used musical toy and squish some Play-Doh over the circuit boards, and you will hear some weird and distorted sounds the manufacturer never intended!

Create your own spinning top, and explore color, shapes and spinning. This activity contains instructions for making your spinning top, and tips on how to design and decorate it.

In this activity, learners make some music by constructing a kazoo out of a simple plastic drinking straw. Use this activity to explore sound, vibrations, and music.

Learners build pan pipes out of drinking straws by cutting them to different lengths. Then, learners make music by blowing across the straws and playing some well-known songs.

In this activity, learners investigate the reflective properties of light and mirrors as they make a kaleidoscope.

In this activity, learners build inexpensive kaleidoscopes using transparency paper and foil (instead of mirrors).

In this activity, learners build a slide whistle using PVC pipe, bamboo skewer, and piece of foam. Construction of the instrument is relatively simple.