Gethsemane – Egg Shakers

I’m sorry I didn’t share this idea earlier. My kids school track out took away all my extra ambition! 🙂

But we used this egg shaker idea for reviewing Gethsemane on Easter, since it was a perfect tie in to both the meaning of Easter as well as the fun of the Easter holiday with Easter eggs! Here’s how it worked:

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Gethsemane
Egg Shaker Pattern

I prefer to start an activity by singing through the song first. But after that, we jump right in! To making passing out egg shakers fast and easy, I add 7-8 to a small canvas bag and hand one bag to each class to hand out. They keep the bag (or hand it to their teacher) until it’s time to clean up and then bring me back the bag.

I bought my egg shakers on Amazon and they are inexpensive and I’ve found them to be very durable! As a new chorister, I tried making my own with some colorful and fun duct tape and basic Easter eggs. They’ve all eventually cracked, though, and while they are dirt cheap to make, I feel the sets are absolutely worth the small investment! You can get them for under $1/each, sometimes as low as 2 for a $1 with a large set!

Ideally, you would buy 1 for at least half the number of kids in your Primary group. Having half as mean helps naturally build in repetition as they take turns trying out the patterns. Or you can pick up enough egg shakers to have one per person. I just grabbed a set of 24 and it was enough for my split Primary.

Egg Shaker Patterns:

• Slow Beat / 2 shakes per measure – (Jesus) climbed the / hill to the / garden / still His / steps were / heavy and / sl- / ow
• Fast Beat / 6 shakes per measure – cli / mbed / the / hi / ll / to the / ga / r / den / sti / ll / his – Just continue at a steady, quick pace
• Once per word – Shake at the beginning of each word. Since Gethsemane is so long and held out, we shook our eggs like crazy whenever we sang the “Gethsemane” phrase. But some of the other words you have to hold out and resist the urge to shake! It’s quite fun! Jesus / climbed / the / hill / to / the / garden / still / His / steps
• Shake out the song – Come up with simple shakes that feel like you are acting out the lyrics of the song. For example:
  • “Jesus climbed the hill” shake the eggs starting low and moving up, up, up in a curve like a hill.
  • ‘To the garden still” cup the egg in your hands and hold it as still as possible.
  • “His steps were heavy and slow” shake to the left side of you and then right side of you in slow even “steps” like you’re walking.
  • “Gethsemane” constant shaking
  • “Jesus loves me” draw a big heart in front of you with the egg shaker
  • “So he went willingly to” stretch egg out far in front of you and back towards your belly
  • “Gethsemane” constant shaking

Because of the length of the song, if you’re doing the song the whole way through, you’ll probably want to pick just 2 of these egg shaker patterns. I’d recommend one of the beat rhythms and by word!

You could also use the Shake out the Song idea on a separate week repeating the pattern you come up with a few times through the song.

Demonstrating the
Egg Shaker Patterns

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Gethsemane Egg Shaker
Printable Lesson Plan

If you want an easy way to save this lesson plan, you can print this simple 1-page printable that outlines the different egg shaker patterns above!

What other fun egg shaker patterns would you use for this song?