# Homemade Fall Maracas
> Kids fill empty plastic water bottles with crunchy dried fall leaves, twigs and pods to make shakers, then decorate them with silk leaves. It's a simple fine-motor, sound-exploring nature craft made from recycled materials.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/fall-crafts-homemade-fall-maracas/
- Ages: 2–5 yrs · Difficulty: easy · Mess: medium
- Time: prep 5 min, activity 20 min
- Works for: one-on-one, small group, whole class
- Skills: fine-motor, music, sound-exploration, nature-exploration, recycling
- Cautions: ingestion-risk

## Materials (one batch)
- 1 piece Empty plastic water bottle with cap (household)
- Dried fall leaves
- Small twigs and seed pods (optional)
- Colorful silk fall leaves (optional)
- Glue (optional)
- 1 piece Tray (household)

## Safety
- Leaf bits, small twigs and pods are choking hazards. Supervise toddlers closely and watch for mouthing.
- Adult screws the bottle cap on tightly before shaking. For young children, consider gluing or taping the cap shut.
- Use clean, dry leaves and wash hands after handling outdoor leaves, twigs and pods.
- If gluing on silk leaves, an adult chooses a kid-safe glue and supervises.

## Before you start
- Collect fall leaves, small twigs and pods, and let the leaves dry until crunchy.
- Rinse and dry empty water bottles from the recycle stash, one per child.

## Steps
1. Lay out the dried fall leaves and the empty bottles on a tray.
2. Break the stalks off the leaves and drop them into the bottle.
3. Crumble leaves into bits and push them through the opening. Try squishing a whole leaf in too.
4. Add a few small twigs and pods.
5. Stop before the bottle is full. The leaves need room to make their sounds.
6. Adult: screw the cap on tightly.
7. Optional: glue a few colorful silk fall leaves onto the outside.
8. Shake the maracas, dance and make music!

## Tips
- It is better to find a bottle without ridges for better visibility. If you are going to decorate the maraca, it doesn't matter.
- We learned that dried leaf bits made more noise than a dried whole leaf.
- Partially green leaves do not make noise, so use the crunchy dry ones.
- Don't fill the bottle all the way with leaves. They need some room to make those fun sounds.
- So much learning happens just filling the bottles: breaking off stalks, crumbling leaves and squishing whole leaves through the opening is great fine-motor practice.
- The idea came from leftover leaves: my almost 3 year old shook the bag and said it sounded like maracas.
- A reader loved that the craft uses all recycled and natural materials. (from readers)

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2014)

It is that time of the year when I complain about living in a season less city. Last year during fall we picked up ourselves and had fun with so many fall crafts [**fall wreath**,](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-decor-with-leaves/) **[big fall tree](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-activity-for-preschoolers/), [propeller bugs](https://www.funlittles.com/propeller-seeds-bugs/)** and many more. You can take a look at all our [**fall crafts**](https://www.funlittles.com/category/season/fall-season/) by visiting us category page. This post is our first one of the many fall crafts we have for the season.

### Musical fall craft using a bottle and leaves

Last week we did a fantastic [**fall play recipes series**](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-activities-apple-dough-recipe/) with a few fellow bloggers. For our nature theme we did these beautiful [**fall sensory jars**](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-activities-fall-sensory-jars/).. We had so many leaves left over and I kept finding my kids shaking them and playing and giggling. My almost 3 year old said "mom this bag sounds like maracas". Of course! That's the birth of this fall craft. I found a couple of empty water bottles from our recycle stash. Tip: It is better to find a bottle without ridges for better visibility. If you are going to decorate the maraca doesn't matter.  I invited the kids to create their own musical maracas. I laid out all the dried fall leaves and the bottles in a tray.My toddler knew exactly what to do and got about busy. Talk about some practicing her [**fine motor skills**](https://www.funlittles.com/category/fine-motor-activities/)!. We started filling up the bottles with the leaves. So much learning and creating was going during the simple process of filling up the bottles it was pure joy to watch those. She first started breaking off the stalks from the leaves and putting them inside the bottle. 

She tried breaking the leaves into bits and then added the leaves. She tried adding the whole leaf ad tried to squish it through the opening. We also learned that dried leaf bits made more noise than dried whole leaf. The kids also added small twigs and pods. 

We also learned that the partially green leaves do not make noise. The girls thought that the leaves filled bottle was beautiful. Don't you think?



We did not fill up the bottle all the way with leaves. The leaves need some room to make those fun sounds.



We even glued on a few a few colorful silk fall leaves. The same leaves we used in our **[fall sensory jars](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-activities-fall-sensory-jars/)** and **[fall sensory bin](https://www.funlittles.com/fall-sensory-bin/).**



Time to shake the maracas and make music.



Oh the kids! They both had grand time with the maracas, shaking, dancing and just going crazy



**Thanks for reading**

****