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Listen to what a rainforest sounds like with your very own rain stick. The sounds that it produces are soothing and are very similar to the pouring of rain in the rainforests. This is an easy project that you can make with household materials, but the effect is to take you far away into another rainy and strangely noisy world.

What you’ll need:

• Two paper-towel tubes
• Safety scissors
• Construction paper
• Aluminum foil
• Ruler
• Masking tape
• Stapler
• 3 oz. of dry couscous, grits, or short-grain rice (couscous works best)

What to do:

1. Cut one of the paper-towel tubes from top to bottom
2. From the construction paper, cut out two 3″ by 3″ squares and four 3″ by 3″ squares from the aluminum
3. Tape the aluminum squares to each side of the construction paper
4. Roll each paper-and-foil square into a funnel and tape shut
5. Then put the smaller ends of the funnels together and tape together to look like an hourglass (if need be, cut the ends square to make them fit)
6. Unroll the cut tube, line it with foil, and staple the corners to the corners of the tube
7. Press the foil down and push all of the wrinkles in the foil toward the middle of the tube
8. Place the funnels in the middle of the tube (the wrinkles should hold them)
9. Roll the tube back up slightly smaller than the other tube and slide it into the uncut tube
10. Tape foil over one end and pour in couscous
11. Tape foil over other end, turn it over, listen, and enjoy!