Sounds of Rain

Watch the video I Love the Rain, then do the activity below.

Create the many sounds of a rainstorm at home using your bodies and household materials.

Create a rainstorm by making sounds with your hands.

1. Depending on the age of the children, you can snap fingers or clap softly to start.
2. As the rain gets harder, clap hands together louder and faster. Pound your hands on your knees and stomp your feet to create louder rainstorm sounds.
3. Continue until the storm is ending, then slowly reverse the sounds (stomping feet, hands pounding on knees, clapping loudly and quickly, clapping slower and softer, snapping fingers, stop).

Another way to hear the sound of rain is to make a rainstick. A rain stick is a simple tube filled with small objects that sound like rain when you tilt it. 

1. Find a used paper towel roll. 
2. Twist a sheet of aluminum foil (about 10” long) into a stick shape and wrap it around a broom handle to make a spiral. Do this with a smaller piece of foil (about 7” long) but make it more like a wire shape and wrap it around a smaller stick to make a tighter spiral. Insert the smaller spiral into the larger one. 
3. Make caps for both ends of the paper towel roll by tracing them on a sheet of paper and cutting out a larger diameter to ft over the ends. Tape the paper on one of the ends. Make sure the tape is very secure so beads do not fall out.* 
4. Insert the aluminum foil spirals into the tube. 
5. Add a quarter cup of beads and secure the other end so the beads won’t fall out. If you don’t have beads, you can also use recycled materials like dried nutshells from pistachio or other nuts, old buttons, or hardware that makes a metallic sound. 
6. Wrap the tube with colored paper and decorate with markers. Secure with rubber bands or yarn for decoration. 
7. Move the tube slowly to hear the rain sounds.

*Loose beads can be a potential choking hazard