The school holidays are fast approaching and the winter polar blast has started to take hold here. So I’m in need of some easy indoor craft activities to keep the kids engaged and entertained.
My inspiration for this idea came from a duo traveling around New Zealand teaching percussion in schools. They made their drums out of all different found materials.
Their name was Kaboom Percussion. My kids came home looking for all sorts of different objects to bang away on. This exploration lead to us thinking about what instruments we could make at home with DIY materials.
Once you have created your instruments, see what musical sounds you can create as a family or maybe the kids could put on a wee show for the family… Exploring sound and seeing what type of music you can make is a great activity to do with the family.
We had some old Kinder Surprise eggs lying around (I know, we don’t throw anything out!). So I thought perhaps gluing them to forks and using rice, we could make our own DIY maracas.
How to Make DIY Maracas
You will need:
Wooden forks
Acrylic paint we used a test pot from Resene in Karen Walker Fuscous Grey
Glitter
Hot glue gun and glue
Kinder Surprise egg
Glitter glue
Glitter sequins
Rice
What to do:
1. Paint your wooden forks in Resene Fuscous Grey. You will need to paint one side, let it dry, and then paint the other side. But it dries really quickly.
2. While the forks are drying, use this time to fill up the Kinder Surprise egg with rice. You could also use beads, or anything that will rattle inside the egg.
3. Grab your glitter glue and paint it over the outside of your forks. If you don’t have glitter glue available, just use normal PVA type glue.
4. Before the glitter glue dries we stick on some stars and confetti glitter.
5. Once the glitter glue is dry attach the Kinder Surprise egg between the middle of both forks using a strong glue. If you have a strong glue for your glue gun, you can use that. I found that if the glue is a cheaper one it won’t stick well to the plastic, so use a stronger epoxy style adhesive. You could also use clear tape and wrap that around the head of the fork.
6. All that’s left to do now is to practice playing your new maracas, and maybe put on an epic percussion show for the whole family to enjoy :).
If you enjoyed making this craft, be sure to check out hundreds of other craft ideas for school aged kids.
