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Fancy DIY Egg Shakers to Make with Kids

These DIY shaker eggs are easy to make and help kids explore rhythm and sound. They are great hands-on music accessories for preschoolers!

These shaker eggs are easy to make - and kids love them! Explore sound as you fill them with different things. #ece #preschool #toddleractivities #DIY

I think egg shakers are a great exploratory learning tool to have in any preschool or home – and visually interesting shaker eggs are even better!

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We’ve made fancy shaker eggs before, and they have been so popular that I couldn’t resist this new variation after finding clear plastic Easter eggs for sale – along with beautiful colored sand.

Fancy DIY egg shakers

You can use either duct tape or electrical tape to keep these closed. Try to stretch the tape out as you go so that the edges stay nice and smooth. We used electrical tape for these.

Easy DIY Egg Shakers

We made three different kinds – egg shakers filled only with colored sand:

fancy egg shakers filled with colored sand

Egg shakers filled with poly pellets (originally purchased for use in our owie dolls, but have proven useful in a lovely variety of ways):

DIY egg shakers filled with poly pellets

And egg shakers filled with both colored sand and poly pellets:

fancy egg shakers filled with colored sand and poly pellets

Use Different Fillers to Make Different Shaker Egg Sounds

Besides making the eggs more visually exciting, the different fillers provide a range of sounds. The poly pellets are loudest, the sand the quietest, and those filled with both fall somewhere in between. The ones with both also provide a mini density lesson, since the less-dense poly pellets rise to the top as you shake the egg gently back and forth.

I also used the tape to create a subtle color wheel lesson – matching complementary colors as much as I could with some limited colors (and a limited understanding of the color wheel – let me know if I got completely off with any, color wheel experts reading this?)

Lily thinks that all of the shaker eggs should belong to her, because she loves them so much – and, apparently, every two-year-old needs twenty-three shaker eggs (one egg arrived cracked, sadly). Thanks to lots of work on sharing, all three kids have enjoyed playing with the eggs, shaking them to music, and running miniature egg hunts in preparation for Easter. It’s probably best that they practice that last skill, since I’ve noticed that – so far, at least – they are much better at hiding than finding!

More Easter Crafts and Activities

Fun crafts and activities for celebrating Easter. Plus a fun way to make use of all that candy!

I love seeing pictures when readers try my activities! If you make these DIY shaker eggs, please share!

MaryAnne at Mama Smiles

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

57 thoughts on “Fancy DIY Egg Shakers to Make with Kids”

  1. Where did you find these on Oriental Trading? Can you post a link?

    Would love to try making these! Excellent post.

  2. These are wonderful!!! What a fun way for the little ones to dance and shake and make some noise!!!

  3. Some of my co-workers expressed concern about the safety of these with small chilcren. I agree that they are adorable and I would love to make them in a program sponsed by my teen group for children. Have you heard of any problems associated with these eggs?

    1. I haven’t heard of any problems, Peggy, but they should be used with supervision since it is possible for a child to peel the electrical tape off, and even if you glue the eggs shut a determined kid could probably still get it open. I haven’t seen kids try to do this, but I think it could be an issue if you got a child with the right personality.

      That being said, I made a set in 2010 that has since been used by 200+ children (always supervised) aged 18 months through 12 years old, and none of those have ever come open. Those eggs were a little more sturdy (see this post https://www.mamasmiles.com/fancy-egg-shakers/), but unfortunately I haven’t found them for sale anywhere since. A couple of the shaker eggs from this set HAVE broken open when kids stepped on them; we just cleaned it up with a dustbuster. Nobody ever tried to eat anything. Just in case, though, the eggs are filled with children’s craft sand and the same poly pellets that go into stuffed toys, and the manufacturers of those products made them knowing it was possible for a child to ingest them (some kids try to eat craft sand, and stuffed toys can also rip open).

  4. I LOVE this idea!! We love color and noise here, and I think the tactile experience involved in this activity is wonderful! I’m going to feature it tonight on my Sharing Saturday post at Preschool Powol Packets!

  5. Fabaroo! I’m so glad you posted this second go at making these. I think it was your last post about them that got me to make some for a friend’s one year old for our egg hunt last year. Now of course I’m reminded to make some for Del for this year! Good to see you and the crew doing well and having fun. Something weird has happened to my rss feed and a lot of blogs I used to be subscribed to are missing for some reason, so I haven’t been here for a while and just thought to check on how you are. Will see if it lets me subscribe again.

  6. Very fun! My kids are getting older, but boy did they love to play with the plastic eggs we had before and after Easter. Early Easter egg hunts were a favorite activity. You really have the best ideas! Thanks for sharing this at We Teach this week.

  7. Elisa | blissfulE

    These are beautiful, and I think your colour wheel idea is brilliant!

    Glad they’re non-perishable for those ones that are hidden and can’t be found… :)

  8. Kim @ The Educators Spin On It

    These are really a neat concept! Intregrating many concepts into one, can’t wait to order some clear plastic egg and get started on our own.

  9. Kristen @ Busy Kids = Happy Mom

    These are sooooo clever! I would have stocked up on them too! Great job!

  10. Those are very cool! This would make a great classroom project and then kids could use them to shake while they dance to music! I will remember this one for sure. :D

  11. These would be GREAT to use with Laurie Berkner’s song “Shaky Egg”…. I will be making some for my daycare children (I have a home daycare) to use with that song! THANKS

  12. Cool idea. Abby had a set of shaker eggs that someone got her when she was a baby. She loved them. She liked to use them as maracas and dance. LOL!

  13. Love this idea! I found it on Pinterest and followed the link back here :0) I wonder if I could make an Easter themed Calm-Me-Jar (Calm-Me-Egg? Lol)if I added hot glue to the seal before using the electrical tape? Either way, I’m going to try this for Easter. Maybe an Easter Resurrection I-Spy Egg? Thank you for sharing your creative ideas!

    1. I found some a couple years ago where half was clear, and then never found any again, so couldn’t resist ordering some when I saw them in the Oriental Trading catalog!

  14. MaryAnne!
    I love this! I have to do this with the girls! Kate, especially, will hoard them and claim they’re all HERS, just like Lily. And goodness knows I have an excess of poly pellets, too. Would you share where you got your clear eggs? I’m assuming not Michaels/JoAnn since they had to “arrive” -by post?

    Thank you so much!

    1. Oh, and did you see Ticia’s suggestion of putting buttons in some? I’m tempted to open up some of the poly pellet ones and turn them into button eggs!

  15. I have to keep our Resurrection eggs hidden because of the mini egg hunts. I bet buttons would be pretty cool in there too.

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