Rainsticks

These are great, they make a fun noise and can be as bright and colourful as you like.  This one will need some adult supervision, however, but I did it with my three year old and she managed it really well.  Did take a long time, however, around 45 minutes

Things you need:

A Crisp tube (preferably with a lid)
A kitchen roll middle (must fit easily inside the crisp tube)
6 - 8 wooden kebab skewers or similar
Scissors and tape
Dry rice and a cup
Decorations for the tube (we used stickers)

What to do:

Pierce lots of holes in the tube with the scissors

Push the kebab skewers through the holes and cut off the ends so they are no longer sharp and no more than 1cm is sticking out of each side. 

Wrap the outside in tape to keep the sticks in place and increase the surface area.  Try to make sure that the top and bottom of the tape are stuck to the tube so no rice can get in, and that there are no sticky parts on the outside.

Drop the tube you have just made into the crisp tube.

Measure out approx one cup of rice and pour it into the tube.

Put the lid on (or another circle of plastic cut from somewhere else if you don't have the lid) and tape it down so it doesn't come off.

It will work fine as it is, but we covered ours in paper tape so that it could be decorated with stickers.

All finished!  Now turn it over and listen to the rain.  

A little later we covered it in clear sticky tape so her younger brother didn't pull all the stickers off.  Might be worth considering if you have younger children in the house.