Skip to main content

DIY Baby Rain Stick

I have always had an eye for creating fun things for kids as a preschool teacher, and now that I am a mommy, I have been anxiously awaiting Ava to "come of age" for some DIY toys from household items!

We recently emptied a roll of paper towels, and my instinct was to just throw the empty roll away. 

But I stopped myself.

What can I make with this?

A baby rainstick!

It's not fancy by any means, but my baby loves it!

Here's What You'll Need:

Empty paper towel roll (or a toilet paper roll)
Clear packing tape
Jingle bells (or other fillers - see below)
Tissue paper

Here's What to Do:

  1. Begin by taping one end of the paper roll closed. You will want to fold the tape over itself so the items inside won't stick to the tape. Tape well so the contents will not come out.
  2. Fill your paper roll with the jingle bells. And by fill, I mean toss a few in. There really doesn't need to be that many "noisemakers" in there, especially if it is for a baby. It will be too heavy to manipulate! If you are making this for a toddler or older child, feel free to add more in!
  3. Now you can tape the other end closed in the same way you did the first.
  4. Next, pull a long piece of tape and scatter tissue paper clippings on it, and press lengthwise onto your paper roll.
  5. Continue placing long strips of tape with tissue paper on it until all the cardboard is covered. 

If you are making this for a baby, be sure there are no exposed "pointy" folds of tape around the ends. It doesn't have to be completely smooth because baby will most likely enjoy mouthing and feeling these little bumps and imperfections.

Now let the little one play with it!

**Please be sure to supervise your child while they play with any homemade toy. Parts can still be bitten off and possibly swallowed.**






You can easily mix this up by using other items instead of jingle bells (I just had some left over from a Christmas Sensory Bottle project...it was a complete bust because the water turned really murky!)

Other Fillings You Can Use:

dry rice (the original homemade rainstick filling)
dry beans
dry pasta
beads
sequins
bobby pins
paper clips
...or practically anything else you have around the house!

It would be a fun science project for older kids to experiment with different types and amounts of fillings to see how that affects the sounds it makes and how heavy it is! (feathers?! cotton balls?!)

******

You may be wondering about why I've chosen to have little hearts covering my baby's face. I don't want her image to be all over Google, or copied and used by anyone else. I don't want her showing up on some random website, and as much as I would love to overload my blog with pictures of her (because she is really adorable!), I want to maintain a certain level of privacy and anonymity due to the fact that this is a completely public blog. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I'd love to hear from you!

Popular posts from this blog

23 Weeks

Hey, I'm actually posting this on time this week!  Maybe it's because I've been awake since 5 this morning.  For no good reason.  (But I did wake up thinking about a big, juicy cheeseburger. And a cup of coffee.) And what a looooong week it's been! We got a sleet storm of about 4 inches of accumulation followed by another inch or two of snow on Sunday night. The sleet froze into ice, basically paralyzingly the area.  I don't think the streets had been pretreated, although I saw trucks putting down liquid de-icer about a week before the sleet came through.  And because this area is not accustomed or prepared for such weather, everything shut down.  All of post was shut down- not even Burger King was open.  And even the mall closed. It takes a lot for the whole mall to close.  And I don't know what else because I didn't leave the house until last night.  I heard...
Post a Comment
Read more

7-Month-Old Liam! And a Month Gone By Without Daddy

It's been one month since Chris has been gone. I've been thinking about this post for awhile, but I'm finding that it's really hard to put this last month into words. It is nonstop crazy, as you would assume with 2 kids still in diapers. It is pretty much nonstop selflessness. There are moments of calm and control, which are so, so great. I'm learning to appreciate those moments more and more! Most days I can stay positive. And some days the frustration rises and something as simple as trying to buckle the carseat but Liam wont let go of the straps makes me have to step back, breathe, and count to 10 to keep my cool. Sometimes it's when the 4th piece of food falls from chubby little fingers and splatters on the floor. Sometimes it's when Ava shrieks at the top of her lungs for the 15th time in a row. Sometimes it's when we are all packed up and ready to load up in the car and I realize someone needs a diaper change. Or a snack. Or a toy...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Let's Play!" Series: Toy Rotation

I spent several hours DEALING WITH MY KIDS' TOYS the other day. I like to rotate their toys, but I haven't done it in several months, and it was way overdue! I'm going to tell you WHAT toy rotation is, HOW to do it, and WHY you should do it! Kids have a lot of toys, and it seems like they never seem to play with all of them and there's never enough space to organize them! With toy rotation, you put at least half  of the toys away, and rotate them out every so often. This controls the mess (to a degree), creates new interest in old or forgotten toys (maybe because all the toys can actually be seen ), and makes for a happier, cleaner home! A lot of my personal struggle with toy rotation is simply the logistics  of it. You'll need to have space to store toys where the kids cannot access them. This could be a closet, basement, a room away from the usual play area(s), or even a locked cabinet. Storage space is something a lot of us struggle with, I think! And oft...
Post a Comment
Read more