I haven’t been posting much lately, but last week we put something together and I stopped long enough to snap a couple of pictures of the process because this would be a great, cheap, rainy day activity for toddlers!

Wagon Jr. was “Star of the Week” at preschool last week, so we came up with activities he could “host” every day at school. Since he’s obsessed with music, we decided to put together homemade rainsticks that he could bring in for his friends to decorate and take home.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Rice
  • Small dried beans or (unpopped) popcorn
  • Cardboard mailing tube with end caps
  • Aluminum foil
  • Broomstick or something else long and skinny
  • Strong tape (we used clear packing tape)
  • Decorations like stickers


First, cut 2 sheets of foil about a yard long and press into long, skinny rods. All hands involved may want to wear gloves. Then take the rods and wrap them around the broomstick to make coils.

(1) Here’s what your coil will look like after you slide it off the broomstick. (2) Now twist one coil looser to make it into a bigger coil, and twist the other tighter to make a smaller coil that will fit inside the bigger coil. Pull both to stretch the length of the mailing tube. (3) Put the smaller coil into the bigger coil. This is a little tricky. I did it by weaving the smaller coil into the bigger one, one rung at a time.

Slide the coils into the mailing tube. Make sure the coil combo reaches both ends of the tube. Then here’s the fun (read: messy!) part. Place about 4 tablespoons each of rice and beans or popcorn into the tube.

Then tape down the end caps to ensure you don’t end up with a rice explosion.

Then decorate as you see fit! You could cover the tube with white paper and use markers, crayons, paints, and of course anything fun like stickers or foam shapes.

Here’s Wagon Jr. proudly displaying his finished creation when we picked him up. And I guess the rainsticks worked, because as you can see in the picture, the day his class did this project it rained cats and dogs!

Let it rain!