If you’ve been reading our blog for a little while, you already know about our deep love for the music of The Laurie Berkner Band (see previous posts for The Lion Sleeps, Airplane Song, Christmas Songs). Today I bring you a favorite of my students: The Shaky Egg song.

This song is great because it’s repetitive, but also has room for students to generate ideas of how to shake the egg during the chorus. Students will work on gross motor skills (bilateral coordination, crossing midline, range of motion) and foundational music skills of tempo (fast/slow), play/stop, and imitating simple melodies and rhythms.

Here are the chords & lyrics:

I know a chicken (I know a chicken) 
And she laid an egg (and she laid an egg) 
Oh I know a chicken (I know a chicken) 
And she laid an egg (and she laid an egg) 
Oh my goodness (oh my goodness) 
It’s a shaky egg! (it’s a shaky egg!) 
Shake your eggs!

During the chorus you can change the lyrics to “shake them fast” or slow, low, high, side to side, etc while matching the changes with your accompanying instrument. I find this song to be more effective when I use live instrument accompaniment vs song recording for most groups that I work with.

Have fun playing shakers with your students!

p.s. if you’re crafty, there are a ton of crochet patterns out there for chickens with a space for Easter eggs that you can put shaky eggs inside of as well 🙂