These musical toys are lots of fun to play with and easy to make from recycled materials. Enjoy exploring the varying sounds different foods make when shaken. For extra learning you can add letters or numbers to the maracas to teach your child the alphabet or counting.
What you’ll need:
- Washed out and dry fruit shoot bottles
- A range of seeds/dry food
- Paper, pens, sellotape and scissors
What to do:
- Open the fruit shoot bottle and carefully pour in some seeds (at least 1cm deep but up to you)
- Securely close the lid
- Peel of the label, write letters on a piece of paper, cut out letters and sellotape to bottle
Pouring 
Writing letters 
Peel off label 
Stick letter on 
Have fun sorting the bottles
Hints and tips
– Place an extra piece of paper under the bottle when pouring as there’s sure to be spillages, as this way you can simply rip the seeds from the paper back into the packet.
– Make sure there’s no liquid in the bottles or the seeds will stick to the side (see letter D in the picture)
– You can use more than one type of seed per bottle and add as much or little as you like, it’s all about experimenting with different sounds.
– We used other foods apart from seeds, e.g. rice, pasta, noodles, whole nutmeg (basically try whatever dry foods you have in your cupboards and will fit in the bottle!).
– You could add some sellotape round the top of the bottle if you’re worried about them opening and spilling.
Recycle and Reimagine 