Water Glass Xylophone Music Experiment

5-8 identical glasses or mason jars (same size works best for consistent pitch)

Water

A metal spoon for tapping

Food coloring in different colors (optional but beautiful)

A towel for inevitable spills

Line up 5-8 identical glasses or jars on a table at your child's height.

Fill each glass with a different amount of water — start with just a little in the first and gradually add more to each subsequent glass.

Tap each glass gently with a metal spoon and listen to the pitch. Rearrange them from lowest to highest sound.

Experiment together: add a little water to a glass and tap again. "Did the sound go up or down?" (More water = lower pitch when tapping.)

Try playing a simple scale by tapping from the least water to the most, then back down.

Challenge your child to play "Twinkle Twinkle" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by ear on the glasses.

Add a different food coloring to each glass for a stunning rainbow xylophone that's as beautiful as it sounds.

Use glasses of the same size and type for the most predictable pitch differences. Mason jars work beautifully.

The science: when you tap a glass, the glass vibrates. More water dampens the vibration, creating a lower pitch. Real physics happening here.

Fine-tune the pitch by adding water drop by drop with a turkey baster or spoon. You can get remarkably close to a real scale.

Keep a towel handy. Enthusiastic tapping leads to splashing, and that's part of the fun.

This is a gorgeous activity to photograph. The colored water, the child concentrating, the spoon mid-tap — it's worth capturing.