Pumpkin Egg Shakers ~ Preschool Music Time Prop

These pumpkin egg shakers were born after my 3-year old had a melt-down in a preschool music class.

Normally my kiddo loves our mommy & me preschool music class, but this week she got upset: When the teacher pulled out a bin of egg shakers, my preschooler went straight for her favorite color: purple. The second she had it, another kiddo grabbed it and ran away. It was so fast that nobody realized what had happened...I was watching her and I hadn't even seen! We all expected her to just take another color, but she was not having it. The scales of justice in the universe were tipped and she was not pleased.

I pulled her aside because she was starting to make a scene, and she explained to me what had happened. At this point, too much time had gone by and I didn't want to stop the whole class to get her shaker back. I suggested that when we get home she could make her own purple music shaker and use it whenever she wanted. She agreed (and I breathed a sigh of relief...battles of wills are not on my list of favorite activities)!

I know you're wondering how pumpkin egg shakers and purple egg shakers get together? Well...when we sat down to make our egg shakers I saw a few orange plastic eggs in my pile (y'all still have plastic eggs from Easter too, right?)! As we taped up my kids' egg shakers, I thought...pumpkin egg shakers would be super fun! And we could pull them out with our pumpkin theme/pumpkin unit and our 5 Little Pumpkins book and when we make pumpkin pie and...yeah, I got excited!

Anyway, making your own normal egg shakers is as simple as putting a handful of rice in a plastic egg and duct taping it closed. I got the idea to add spoons as handles from my friend who runs the music class...she has a set of them, and the DIY-with-spoon-handle shakers are often more popular than the official egg shaker set.

Unfortunately, with our duct tape DIY method, most of the orange was covered up. I thought about just gluing the eggs together, but decided the duct tape would hold up better for my kiddos. I know orange duct tape exists, but I didn't have any. However, I do have a lot of acrylic paint...and my daughter was already decorating her egg shaker...

So, the pumpkin egg shakers were born!

The easy supplies include plastic eggs, duct tape, plastic spoons, and paint.

Four quick steps:

1- Place a handful of rice in the egg and tape it closed.

2- As you tape, place the plastic spoons on as handles.

3- Paint the whole thing orange...ish! Pumpkins come in all colors, after all!

If you have a preschooler like mine, you might have sparkly glitter everywhere too.

4- Optionally, when the pumpkin is dry, add more black duct tape for jack-o-lantern features!

I also stuck a yarn "stem" on with some hot glue.

Ta da! Your pumpkin egg shakers are perfect for Halloween music/singing time!

You can use them to sing 5 Little Pumpkins or just rock out to your favorite Halloween or pumpkin music! Try having your kiddos copy your rhythm or shake them with different parts of their body! Toss them in the middle of a play parachute and see if you can "shake" them with the parachute!

There are so many options...what would you do with them? My daughter takes hers out (both the pumpkins and the purple sparkly shakers) to "play" them about every two hours!

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