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Fancy Egg Shakers: A Rhythm-Building Music Craft for Kids

Teach children about sound and rhythm with these fun homemade egg shakers!

DIY Shaker eggs

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I found these cool plastic Easter eggs on sale for $0.99 at Michaels craft store Tuesday night, and knew they would make perfect egg shakers. They are made out of sturdier plastic than regular eggs, and I love that one half is a colored egg and the other half is clear.

DIY Egg Shakers

fancy egg shakers

These simple DIY egg shakers were easy to put together! We filled half of them with poly pellets (like I use to make weighted blankets). Then I decided to make things a little more interesting, so we used colored rice, quinoa, pinto beans, and black beans to fill the remaining eggs. I sealed the eggs shut with electrical tape – it’s hard for little fingers to peel off and stretchy enough that it only bunches a tiny bit at the narrow end of each egg. And it gives each egg a “fancy” black stripe. Duct tape also works well.

All three kids enjoy playing with them:

playing with egg shakers

Lily uses them properly the most frequently – turns out they make perfect baby toys!

DIY shaker eggs

Emma and Johnny spent much of yesterday afternoon pretending to be Easter bunnies and hiding the eggs. They would then go find them for me, and tell me what a good job I was doing of finding the eggs. That’s my kind of game!

There are many structured ways to use egg shakers: you can have children shake their eggs to the beat of a song, talk about how different fillings in the eggs make different noises, have one child shake their egg and ask the other children to try to walk to the beat of the egg shaker… If you make fancy clear shakers like us, you can even talk about how static electricity makes some of the fillings (quinoa in particular) stick to the inside walls of the shaker!

How would you use these egg shakers with your kids?

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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

34 thoughts on “Fancy Egg Shakers: A Rhythm-Building Music Craft for Kids”

    1. The clear side makes them way more fun! Wish I knew where to buy them all the time – I have friends who want sets =)

  1. So much fun! They have pretty colored electrical tape, too, but these are so visual already. I love this idea! Carolyn

    1. Thanks! I want to make more for friends, but so far I haven’t seen eggs like those this year…

  2. We have some homemade shakers in little boxes but I really like that you can see inside your version – much more interesting. Thanks for linking to the Carnival of Music and Sing Play ;)

  3. Bad idea, electrical tape is not secure enough for a toddler witrh with patience, contents can be choking hazards depending on size of particulate, as well as the left over tape.

  4. What a clever idea!

    Following from MBC.
    .-= Amanda´s last blog ..snackTAXI Review and Giveaway!! =-.

  5. Elisa | blissfulE

    Gorgeous! And I totally agree they are the perfect baby toy.

    LOL about your kids finding them for you and telling you what a great job you’re doing of finding them. :)
    .-= Elisa | blissfulE´s last blog ..spinach dip in a homemade bread bowl =-.

  6. Great ideas, and you snagged a great deal on those eggs. Lily looks so big already!
    .-= Natalie´s last blog ..Geography Through Play =-.

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