We shake the egg shakers to the steady beat along with the songs we either listen to or sing for our babies ourselves (even better!). You pat the beat for the first part, and then you have the kids copy what you say and shake to match the words. We were making shaky eggs the entire first week of our Toddlerfest celebration. Shaky eggs or egg maracas are a great first percussion instrument for little ones and a fun way for them to feel included in making music as well as get a good introduction to rhythm, which is an important early literacy skill! Now that the egg shakers are complete, you can use them in soooo many ways. Here are just a few ideas. And egg shakers filled with both colored sand and poly pellets: Use Different Fillers to Make Different Shaker Egg Sounds

I can’t tell you how many of my own fellow classroom teachers walk into my room and start playing or pounding on my stuff. There are lots of songs that can be used with shaky eggs—actually, you can shake along to most any song you like or listen to---but there are a handful of songs that I use regularly in Baby Storytime here at the museum that highlight shaky eggs and are a lot of fun. That’s just a sampling of the egg shaker songs we do during Baby Storytime—stop by on Wednesdays at 9:30am in Primary Place to see the other ways we use them. Shaking with the words is actually getting them ready for rhythm later on in their schooling and lives too! This developed out of an improvisation with the kids. They were playing with egg-shaped “shakers” and I needed a song to go along with it. What could be more fun than shouting out a little blues?With this one, I have the kids play the steady beat for the main part of the song and then only play on the letters you say with the “B-I-N-G-O.” My Mother, Your Mother In reality, we can’t expect them to do much of anything with the egg shakers, but there are two main ways we can use egg shakers with them: Breaking Words into Syllables–Help kids hear the syllables in words by shaking the egg for each syllable in a word. For example, the word goldfish is a two-shake word and the word hamburger is a three-shake word. The best things we can do at this age level are to simply provide a good experience with music and bond with our kids.

It’s also a good idea and important at this age level to start setting up expectations for how to treat instruments. 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. 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?)You can use your shaky egg creations to learn about science too. You can find a large variety of eggs in stores around Easter time. Experiment with many different sizes and styles of eggs. Let kids experiment with different fillers too. Let them mix materials to come up with the “perfect” sound. You can even offer some soft materials like cotton balls or foam pieces to add to the eggs. Ask kids to make predictions about how different eggs and different materials will change the sound of their shaky eggs. Shake Those Eggs – Ideas If you’re happy and you know it and you really want to show it, if you’re happy and you know it shake your egg—three times!