Submitted by Wynne Alexander, Decatur, Mississippi

Idea posted June 2, 2003

I have used straight pretzel sticks for stems with dried butter beans for noteheads. I suppose you could use brown peas for quarter notes and the white butter beans for half notes. For the staff, I give each child a sheet of construction paper and they glue on 5 different colored, precut strands of yarn. Fruit loops look good on this, too. I mainly did this to teach reading the notes, not the rhythms.