How to Make a Rainstick

If you’re teaching your son/daughter about rain or the rainforest, making a rain stick is a great craft to complement the lesson.

I’d seen this project ages ago and thought it would be fun but my son’s fine motor skills simply weren’t up to the task. Now that he’s older, I figured we’d give it a go. I’m glad I did.

What you need:

A bare paper towel tube

40-50 wooden toothpicks

School glue

Posterboard or heavy construction paper (trace the opening and cut 2 circles ¼ bigger than the tube; make several snips all around the circle from the outer edge in to the traced line)

1-2 tbsp. of rice, lentils, or other small beans

Push pin

Hot glue gun

Paint/markers

Nippers or cutters to cut off the toothpick ends

Directions:

Use a push pin to make holes in the paper towel tube about a ¼-inch apart. I used the seams on the paper towel tube as a guide and added another row of holes between these seams. Then I gave my son the box of toothpicks to feed through one hole and out a hole on the other side. You’ll end up with a downward spiral of toothpicks on the inside of your tube.

If your rainstick looks something like a medieval torture device, you’re on the right track. Once about 40-50 toothpicks are stuck in the tube, put a dot of school glue on each of the holes where the toothpicks are sticking out (this will prevent the toothpicks from falling out).

When the glue dries, snip off the ends of the toothpicks (be careful, they could go flying). Run a bead of hot glue around one of the ends and fold down the flaps you cut on one of the posterboard circles until the end of the tube is capped.

Have your child measure the beans/rice/lentils and pour into the tube. Hot glue the other circle of posterboard around the open end. Give your child paints, markers, or strips of paper to glue over the tube to decorate it. Now, slowly turn the rainstick and listen to the sound of falling rain!

I practically had to beg my son to decorate his rainstick. All he wanted to do was play with it!

After we were done with this craft we read two great books about rainforests: “Amazon River Rescue,” an Adventures of Riley book by Amanda Lumry and Bonnie Worth’s “If I Ran the Rainforest” from the Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library.

To read the original directions for this activity, visit FreeKidsCrafts.com.