Make Your Own Rainstick

What You Need:

• Brown marker (and other colored markers if desired)
• Aluminum foil
• Long tube of cardboard
• Dried beans
• Masking tape

What You Do:

1. If the tube already has two circular pieces on the ends, remove one of them. If the tube has nothing on the ends, you will need to seal off one of the ends so that you can pour in the beans without them falling through. Take some pieces of tape and stick them to each other so that you have two nonsticky surfaces. Now, take the pad of tape and attach it to one end of the tube.
2. Ask your child to pour some beans into the tube. Try shaking the tube up and down a little to hear how the beans sound inside the tube. Let your child add more beans if desired.
3. Next, repeat step one on the other side of the tube to seal it off so that the beans cannot get out, or seal the tube off using the plastic ends it came with if you have them.
4. Let your child turn the tube upside down and let the beans fall through the tube. Have her try turning it over slowly, and then quickly to hear the difference in the sound it makes.
5. In order to get a different sound, you can open up the tube and place a few pieces of crumpled aluminum foil into the tube. This will slow down the beans as they move through the tube.
6. Try out the sounds with the new rainstick set up by flipping it over again.
7. Next you can decorate the outside of the tube with the colored markers to complete your rainstick!