We tried filling our shakers with different things to experiment with different sounds. What nose does coffee beans make, compared with rice, compared with dried lentils?
How to make a shaker
You will need
- Toilet rolls (1 per shaker). Paint them beforehand for coloured shakers.
- Duct or electrical tape (the thin kind)
- Milk bottle caps (2 per shaker)
- Sharpie markers
- Dried beans, rice, coffee beans or similar to make the shaking sound
- Paints if desired, although they aren’t really necessary
How to
Stick a milk bottle cap on to the end of a toilet roll with electrical (or duct) tape.
Fill your toilet roll with the dried beans (we used coffee beans and rice in ours).
Tape another lid on to the other end of the toilet roll enclosing the beans. Make patterns by adding extra stripes of tape in another colour..
Finish it off by decorating in between the tape gaps with a black marker.
The kids can help out with these and make their own patterns.
You’re done! now all you need to do is ….
Shake & dance!
More DIY musical instruments kids can make
Make a mini banjo from a recycled jar lid
How many instruments can you make from a paper cup?
Make some mini shakers from duct tape and bottle caps
These jingly ribbon dancers are so quick and easy to make!
Hi Kate. Love your tp roll project. We would be delighted if you would stop by the Creative Challenge party and link up your shakers. This month’s challenge is to creative something form toilet paper rolls. Hope to see you there. Best wishes, Darlene
Hi! Is there a trick to getting the milk caps on? Mine seem to be too small to fit on the toilet paper rolls
This is tricky because paper rolls vary in width, and probably so do bottle caps. Ours didn’t slide neatly over the edge of the rolls though, they lined up with them (at about the same width) and I taped them on
Use some cardboard for the ends. Cut out big or small circles and tape them one at the ends of the toilet paper rolls.
Great idea, that would make a different sound too