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MaryAnne at Mama Smiles Welcome to my blog! I'm MaryAnne, and I write about building a rewarding family life through mindful parenting, hands-on learning, and creative family activities. Learn more.

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

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fancy egg shakers

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

These simple DIY egg shakers were easy to put together! We filled half of them with poly pellets. 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?

Reader Interactions

Comments

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

  3. Our church uses them in the children’s ministry for the kids to participate in worship. Glad to hear mine aren’t the only ones hiding eggs nonstop.
    .-= Ticia´s last blog ..Butterfly Gardens =-.

  11. 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 =-.

  13. What a clever idea!

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

  16. 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.

    • @MD – Ours have held up without any trouble, but they aren’t ever used without supervision.

  17. 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 ;)

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

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

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

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