Shake and Match — Homemade Sound Shakers

A home-made version of the Montessori sound cylinders — the child shakes identical-looking pots and pairs them up purely by the sound they make.

  1. Collect 8 identical opaque containers with lids (spice jars wrapped in paper, plastic eggs, small tubs, film-style canisters). Fill them in pairs with four different fillings — for example rice, dried beans, a few coins, and sand or salt. Tape the lids shut.
  2. Mark the bottom of each pair with a matching sticker or dot so the child can check their own answers. Split the pots into two sets of four.
  3. Show how to listen: pick up one pot, shake it gently beside one ear, then the other, and put it down. Pick up a pot from the other set and shake it. “Same? Or different?”
  4. The child works through the set, trying pots until they find each match, and places matching pairs side by side.
  5. When all four pairs are made, turn the pots over together and check the stickers. Mix them up and play again, or put them away for another day.

Variation: take just one set of four and line the pots up from quietest to loudest. For a harder match, make pairs with the same filling in different amounts (one spoon of rice versus three).

Requirements

  • Space: A table or a patch of floor in a quiet room
  • Surface: Table, tray, or rug — a soft mat keeps the pots from clattering
  • Materials: 8 identical opaque lidded containers, 4 fillings (rice, beans, coins, sand, pasta, paper clips), tape, stickers
  • Participants: 1 child with an adult to introduce it; can be played alone once learned
  • Supervision: Moderate while filling and sealing the pots, then light

Rationale & Objective

Auditory discrimination — noticing that two sounds are the same or different — is the foundation the other listening skills rest on, and ASHA names it among the core central auditory processes. Maria Montessori designed the sound boxes for exactly this purpose: because the containers look and feel identical, the ear is the only sense that can solve the puzzle, and the child must hold one sound in mind while listening to the next. That listen–remember–compare cycle is the same one a child later uses to hear that “pin” and “pen” are not the same word. Grading the pots from quiet to loud adds a finer judgment — not just “different” but “how different” — and builds the vocabulary of sound (loud, soft, rattly, swishy) that the UK Letters and Sounds programme treats as groundwork for phonics. The stickers underneath give Montessori’s “control of error”, letting the child find and fix mistakes without an adult correcting them.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: shakes pots vigorously and enjoys the noise; matches only very different sounds (coins versus sand); needs an adult to ask “same or different?” each time
  • Developing: matches 2–3 of the 4 pairs with some trial and error; begins shaking gently and listening with each ear; uses the stickers to check
  • Proficient: matches all 4 pairs independently and checks them; can order 3–4 pots from quietest to loudest; describes sounds with words like “rattly” or “soft”
  • Advanced: matches 6 pairs, including similar fillings (rice versus lentils) or the same filling in different amounts; guesses what is inside from the sound alone

Safety Notes

  • Beans, coins, beads, and paper clips are choking hazards — tape or glue lids firmly and keep the set away from babies and toddlers who might open them
  • Do not use glass jars; choose plastic or metal containers that survive being dropped
  • Avoid fillings that are common allergens in your household (e.g., nuts) in case a pot opens
  • Shake beside the ear, not against it, and keep it gentle — the game works best quietly anyway
  • If a child cannot tell even very different sounds apart in a quiet room, or seems to hear much better on some days than others, ask your doctor about a hearing check

Hints

  • Playfulness: call them “mystery eggs” or “dragon rattles” and let the child help choose and pour the fillings for the next set — then test you with it
  • Sustain interest: swap in new fillings every week or two (pasta, buttons, a single marble, water) so the set never becomes a memory game
  • Common mistake: making the first set too hard. Start with four sounds that are obviously different and only later add near-twins like rice and lentils
  • Limited space: no containers? Do it with what is in your hands — tap a spoon on a mug, a glass, a pan, and a book behind a cushion and ask which two taps were the same
  • Cross-domain: sort the pots by weight as well as sound (tactile and proprioceptive discrimination); count the pairs; use the shakers to keep a beat to a song (music)
  • Progression: 3 very different pairs → 4 pairs → 6 pairs → similar fillings → grade quiet-to-loud → same filling in different amounts → guess the filling

Sources

  • Montessori, M. — The Discovery of the Child (education of the auditory sense; the sound boxes)
  • Montessori Sensorial curriculum — Sound Cylinders (pairing and grading presentations)
  • ASHA (2005), (Central) Auditory Processing Disorders — Technical Report: auditory discrimination as a central auditory process
  • DfES (2007), Letters and Sounds, Phase One, Aspect 2 (general sound discrimination — instrumental sounds, including matching sound makers)
  • Ayres, A.J. (2005), Sensory Integration and the Child (25th anniversary ed.)