Making A Rain Stick

There are a lot of options, as far as home-made instruments go. Drums and rubber-band guitars are both really fun and popular options. But we have a pretty good drum already, and I didn't have any rubber bands in the house (or any shoe boxes). So we decided to make a rain stick.


First you need to gather a paper towel roll, some aluminum foil, some rice or dried beans, an an old drawing or painting your child has made.

We dont use paper towels, so I actually taped two toilet paper rolls together. Then Zeke crinkled up the aluminum foil into a long long snake, and then I coiled it. We ended up using 2 lengths of aluminum foil as long as the one pictured below to make a nice tight coil.

Then we put the aluminum foil coils into the tub, and covered the ends.
I traced the paper towel roll on Zeke's old drawing and then cut about a quarter inch around the circle. Then Zeke made cuts all the way around, as far as the traced circle. The tabs this created were then able to be folded down over the roll.

Dont forget to pour some rice or beans into the tube before you cover the second end!! (We almost did.)

The rest of our crayon drawing we glued all the way around the tube- for easy decoration.