Using our plastic cups, balloons, rice and pasta, Simon had made Isabelle a drum, a rainstick, a 'shaker' and some very fun musical balloons.
The drum was simply a cup with rice in it and a balloon cut and pulled taut over the top. For the rain stick (see our previous rainstick here) he had the (pretty ingenious) idea to fill two cups with pasta and rice, and tape them together. The presence of the pasta meant that the rice 'trickled' through the cups slowly and gave a much nicer noise than the rainsticks we made last week. An old chewing gum bottle was filled with rice to make a shaker, and Simon filled balloons with pasta, rice and ceramic beads to make noisy balloons.
Isabelle seemed to enjoy the drum, and certainly made some interesting faces when she was playing it!
The noisy balloons were my favorite (until I popped one!), as they were so much fun to shake and gave a really great noise. The balloon which had the ceramic beads was especially fun as, when shaken, the beads were visible inside. If you shook it lots and then set it down, the continued movement of the beads made the balloon dance around on the floor....until it popped!
Simon had also left some pasta and rice out on the tuff spot for Isabelle who always enjoys a good play with dry ingredients.