Making maracas!

Materials Required

1. Small water bottles or juice bottles
2. Rice or pasta or something that makes a noise when shaken
3. Music – Latin Music uses lots of Maracas but anything your child enjoys will work well
4. Tape or hot glue gun to seal the lid on the bottle
5. Small funnel
6. Measuring cups 1/2 and 3/4
7. Paint (optional)
8. Paintbrushes, (optional)
9. Stickers or contact (optional)

Preparation

Find two small water or juice bottles (it needs to be small enough for your child to hold) – Find a funnel (or make one using a sheet of paper rolled into a cone) – Have rice or pasta out ready – Have measuring cups out ready

Method (or Ideas)

1. Have your water or juice bottle on a flat surface.
2. Place rice or pasta or other material into funnel (probably 1/2 – 3/4 cup per maraca is enough). Let your child help with this.
3. Pour your rice or pasta into the two maracas. Let your child help with this.
4. Seal the lid using tape or a hot glue gun.
5. Practice playing the maracas.
6. Put on some music and let them dance while shaking the maracas

Facilitation Tips – What To Say

 

• How are we going to put the rice into the bottle?
• Can you pour the rice into the funnel?
• Can you shake your maracas?
• What do they sound like? (rain?)
• Can you dance and play your maracas?
• Shake it up high, shake it down low

Extend the Experience

• You could also choose to decorate your bottles (maracas) before adding the rice or pasta
• Paint your bottles with acrylic paint or decorate them using stickers or contact

WHO Guidelines for Physical Activity & Sedentary Behaviour

Dancing with your maracas is being physically active.

Early Years Learning Framework

Outcomes

1. Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation
2. Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing
3. Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes

Principle

Principle 4: Respect for diversity. Children are born belonging to a culture, which is not only influenced by traditional practices, heritage and ancestral knowledge, but also by the experiences, values and beliefs of individual families and communities. Respecting diversity means within the curriculum valuing and reflecting the practices, values and beliefs of families.

Practice

Practice: Learning through play. Play can expand children’s thinking and enhance their desire to know and to learn. In these ways play can promote positive dispositions towards learning. Children’s immersion in their play illustrates how play enables them to simply enjoy being.