Raining Rice!

Everything Toddler Activity Book: Take 2!  This time we made a rain stick. It was a process...be prepared for a long post ;)

Violet really enjoys the "shaker eggs" that they have at New Berlin Public Library during story time. Plastic egg with rice inside and shake, shake, shake...instant toddler fun.  So, the rain stick seemed like a good idea for something similar at home. First we gathered the materials: 1/4 cup dry rice, paper towel tube, pipe cleaner, foil squares and tape. Note* scotch tape did not hold up nor did packing tape! I recommend duct tape!

Then V got to work "decorating" the tube; very similar to how we used stickers and crayons on the cardboard train project. 

Next I put the foil closing one end of the tube and V inserted the pipe cleaner. I think this was to have something for the rice to bounce/ricochet off of instead of just dropping straight down from one end to the other. 

Now comes the fun and messy part: adding rice!

I spread a blanket on the floor and let V have some sensory time while I closed the 2nd end with the foil and tape. 

Well, we might as well use all of this...

STICKY!

This picture cracks me up! Looks like she is doing karate blocks and chops :)

Then she started experimenting with the finished product (minus some tape adjustments).

This is Violet's "I'm talking on this pretend phone to Dada, Bapa or Grandma" excited face!

I got all the rice cleaned up off the blanket much to V's protesting. I decided to just save it in a bowl for later use since she liked it so much. I set it on our kitchen counter (uncovered) and got the vacuum out to clean up the carpet under the blanket. There was a lot more than anticipated and I ended up taking the vacuum apart and de-tangling all the hair that had built up. If anyone has an alternative to keep this from happening let me know because it is only going to get worse once V's hair gets longer too!  While I was knee deep in vacuum dust, Miss V. managed to get up on the tippiest of her tippy toes and grab the bowl of rice from the counter. Her head and neck were straining upwards because she wanted to see the bowl. Her mouth happened to also be open, why I don't know. As you can imagine, this did not end well! She got a mouth full of the rice and the bowl thumped her on the head on the way down. Cue screams...and vomit. Before being a parent, I just never pictured myself using my fingers to get rice out of my toddler's mouth and then catching the vomit that came out afterwards. Needless to say, we needed some calm down time, water and an outfit change. I added duct tape to avoid any future rice-in-the-mouth mishaps and THEN V enjoyed her new rain stick!  

Looks like she is leading the marching band hahaha

AHHHHH THIS IS FUN!

Thanks for reading...hoping you are enjoying V's curious adventures. She has been curious about cooking/baking, dishes/dishwasher and Mom's purse recently. Blog posts to come...