Make mini maracas and major music with this creative craft project, perfect for classroom fun or just an in-home concert!
What You Need:
- Walnuts
- Nutcracker
- Small beads or seeds
- Popsicle stick
- Hot glue gun
- Acrylic paint
- Paint brushes
What You Do:
- First, help your child use a nutcracker to crack open walnut shells until you get two halves that are not broken and can be re-glued together. Your child can help clean out the nut’s innards from inside the two walnut halves.
- Have your child place small beads or seeds inside one of the walnut halves, filling it about 1/3 of the way full.
- Place a Popsicle stick in between the two walnut halves. The parent can use the hot glue gun to put glue around the edges where the walnut halves will meet, and on the part of the Popsicle stick which will be inside the walnut.
- Press the two walnut halves together, with the stick in the middle, and hold for a minute to help cement the glue.
- Give the glue a chance to dry (a few hours). Then let your child use acrylic paints and paint brushes to decorate his maraca with colorful images. Both the Popsicle stick and the walnut’s outer shell can be painted.
After the paint has dried, let him play music with his maraca by gently shaking it. If he makes more than one mini maraca, he can play them in unison, or invite a friend to make music with him. Enjoy the maraca concert!
Did You Know:
Maracas are associated with Latin American music and have historically been made in several South American countries, but were also made in Africa. They were originally made with hollowed-out gourds (a vegetable) filled with seeds. Modern maracas are usually made of wood or plastic.
By Beth Levin
Beth Levin has an M.A. in Curriculum and Education from Columbia University Teachers College. She has written educational activities for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill and Renaissance Learning publishers. She has a substitute teaching credential for grades K-12 in Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
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