Rainsticks {Tutorial}

The forecast is calling for a lot more wind and rain around here. Yuck! I usually don't mind the rain too much, but now that it's officially Spring I'm starting to miss the warmth of the sunshine. Just to keep with the rainy theme, we decided to craft some rainsticks out of cardboard tubes that we had left over from a roll of wrapping paper.


The boys chose to decorate their tubes by covering them in crayon and construction paper, but you could use anything, really - paints, glitter, yarn, rhinestones (hey, why not?). I figured that it wasn't going to be long before the rainsticks turned into swordplay, so I was happy to keep it fast and simple.

Everything is better with stickers.

Cap one end of your tube. You can make the cap look really clean and pretty by using a circle of paper and a gluestick, but again, I have boys that have been cooped up indoors for what seems like forever now. Rainstick sword fighting seems somewhat inevitable at this point. I sealed mine with Gorilla Tape ;)

Loosely crumple up a piece of aluminum foil that is slightly shorter than your tube, and insert it into the middle.

Pour about 1/2 cup of rice, birdseed, etc into your tube and seal the other end shut.

Turn it from side to side to listen to the sound of falling rain!

If we're going to have to listen to all this rain, we might as well make some noise of our own...if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

Posted in: Kids, Rainy Day, Tutorial