Musical Shakers With Loose Parts!

Making music is a fun-filled way to spend time with your family and can be done indoors or out!

Today we are excited to share a way for you to make your own musical instruments using materials you already have around your home!

Homemade shakers can be made with two materials:

1)A container that seals closed - We chose to use plastic eggs but you could use tupperware, a plastic container from your recycle bin, or anything else that your family can find.

2)Loose parts to shake! - We collected materials from our yard such as rocks, lichen, tree bark, pine cone scales, and pieces of a stick. Rice, beans, seeds, and grains also make wonderful shakers!



We really enjoyed the process of gathering materials for our shakers, hunting all over our backyard! Then we experimented with different materials inside the shakers, some were loud and others were very quiet.

Once your shakers are ready, sing and shake with Stephanie in the video below. If you're a Sapling family and want to begin your day with our Good Morning Songs, you can find them HERE.



After you're done dancing and shaking, can you find other ways to use your new instruments? 

A few activities we tried were:

*Guess the Sound - One person gives a shake, and everyone else listens carefully and then guesses what mystery item is inside the shaker.

*Hide and Go Seek - One person hides the shakers around your yard or in your home, then the seekers collect all of the shakers and find a place to sit, open the shakers, and explore the contents. We sorted the contents in lots of different ways - by size, texture and color. What other ways can you think to sort the contents?

We hope you find lots of ways to enjoy your new shakers this week. If you make your own shakers we'd love to see photos and hear how you used them!