This week’s unplug your kids’ challenge was “Cylinder”.
The kids’ school has a lovely wooden set of cylinders that you shake and match up. I saw those, and saw how much fun they both were having with them and decided we could make a set at home with those mini m&m containers.
Materials:
* An equal amount of mini m&m tubes in two different colors (I didn’t realize that they have little characters embossed on the tops and just happened to grab one of each, but if you really want your tubes to match, you’ll have to keep an eye out for that)
* Various little things to put inside to make rattling sounds
* Hot glue to glue it shut if you’re letting little ones use them
Step One.
Remove the m&m covers and any remaining glue residue
Gather a bunch of materials to put inside. You’ll need to have enough to put inside two tubes, one of each color. We had fun looking for items that were made from different materials such as: wood, plastic, metal, organic and so on.
Fill the tubes with equal amounts of the shaking goodies and then test the sound. You’ll probably want to have a nice variety of sounds, but if you want to make things difficult than you could have slightly different sounds too. Surprisingly we discovered that mini jingle bells didn’t sound nice when enclosed in the plastic, and the quacking sound maker from a toy didn’t work as it needed air flow to make a nice sound. So make sure you test your sounds before you move on to the next step.
Step 4
An adult glues the lids shut with a hot glue gun.
Step 5
Shake! Match! Put them in your mouth (that idea’s from Jayden, I don’t really recommend it)
10 comments
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August 26, 2008 at 6:11 am
Heather
I was working on this idea just today. That’s funny. Great project. I wish that I had those tiny containers. I am using old parm. cheese containers. LOL.
August 26, 2008 at 6:22 am
Heather T.
Hey, I did that a couple of years back with empty mint tins, for Allen… rice, and lentils or other sized beans also make a great sound. Fun stuff!
August 26, 2008 at 6:22 am
Heather T.
Ooh, weird, I just noticed the two Heathers. *giggles*
August 26, 2008 at 7:41 am
sbascom
I’m thinking that eating the M&Ms would be the best part! Or maybe that’s just the diet talking…
August 26, 2008 at 9:28 am
Michie
Fun project!
August 26, 2008 at 10:46 am
craftynature
Great idea to use the M&M tubes!! We did ours with seashells which adds a neat tactile experience to it, but gluing the tubes would be much easier *grin*.
Nature Mama
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/NatureNotesFromAbove
August 26, 2008 at 10:49 am
Dana
That does look like lots of fun! I’ve seen this done with the film canisters, but I love the idea of the M&M tubes. Great idea!!!
August 30, 2008 at 12:29 pm
zakka life
what a great idea, I’ll have to try this with the kids
August 30, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Cam
I refuse to send you my tubes! I have them in many different colors.. I use them daily.. I refill them with regular M&Ms to take with me to work every day!!
Please tell me what you used to get the glue off!!!
September 3, 2008 at 6:21 am
Alisha
Oh, I love this… We make these here to take to the football games, but we use empty water bottles. 🙂