Rain Sticks

The 6th graders are making rain sticks in art. Mary Johnson saves all the empty, thick cardboard laminator rolls for me and they make perfect forms for rain sticks. Two weeks ago we slipped out to the garage where we pounded many hundreds of nails for a good hour in the sides of the tubes (thanks for the hammers). Last year we did the hammering in the classroom and I think the noise really disturbed the 5th graders, so the garage was the perfect place. Then last week we poured about a half a cup of un-popped pop corn into the tubes, sealed the ends and gave them a layer of paper maché. This week we will paint them to look beautiful.  I hope Mr. Saltz can incorporate a rain stick number into music class because they sound lovely. Here we are in the garage and here are the sticks waiting to be painted.