If your nearby shops are anything like mine, the plastic eggs have been out since February 15th. They are EVERYWHERE!  I am a firm believer in the power of novelty so I snap up a couple packs at the local dollar store as soon as I can.

One of the activities I made with them this year are sound shakers.  This was a fun activity to kick off our sound unit.

Step 1- Prepping the Eggs

Gather your supplies!  I used 12 plastic eggs and a variety of small items I found around my house.  I used safety pins, paper clips, pennies, rice, oatmeal, a ball of dough (like playdoh), a foam cube, dry spaghetti, buttons, beads and  etc… you could also use marbles, small erasers, lego bricks. or pencil top erasers.  Your imagination is only limited by what will fit inside the egg!

Place a different item in each egg. For most items, I filled about half of the egg.  I numbered each egg with numbers 1 through 12.

⭐A little HINT- Put a little tape around the egg to keep them from opening! ⭐

I also printed and copied one recording sheet for each student! You can get the recording sheet here for free!

Step 2- Using the Eggs

When lesson time came, we sat in a circle.  Everyone had a clipboard, pencil and recording sheet.  The recording sheet had 12 eggs on it and each egg has 2 lines.  (I feel like the start of a word problem! 🤣)  Starting with egg #1, students shook the egg, recorded a prediction of what they thought was in the egg and passed the egg to the next child.  This let everyone engage multiple senses by feeling, shaking and hearing the egg. When the first egg got about a third of the way around the circle, I started the next week.  This allowed the eggs to move through fairly quickly and reduced the downtime students had.

Step 3- The Discussion

After everyone made their predictions, we shook the eggs again and listened for eggs that had high and low pitches.  We also listened for eggs that had similar sounds.

Step 4- The Reveal

Due to my schedule, we split this activity into a 2 day event.  On day 2, we did the Big Reveal!  For each egg, I shook the egg so everyone could hear it again.  Students shared with a partner and/or the class what they predicted was in the egg and then we revealed the inside!  I’m telling you, this was like a huge party!  I had NO idea kids would get this excited about paperclips in a plastic egg.  Students were cheering and high-fiving each when they got it right.  After revealing the egg, students recorded the correct material on the second line of the egg.

Step 5- Follow Up Discussion

We talk a lot in my room, so we finished this activity by going back to the discussion of which eggs sounds similar. We drew connections to eggs that sounds similar to each other where made out of the same type of material or were similar in size.

You can print the recording sheet AND discussion cards here!

If you use this activity, drop me a note to tell me how it went!