zach's shaker

The other day, Zach was watching TV. There was a small segment on a craft that you can do with your children. Well, Zach needed no prompting. And I'm not sure if he saw this TV segment several times or not. If not, then this boy's a genius. I was in the bathroom getting ready and he yelled, "Mom, I'm going to make a shaker!" So he found an empty toilet paper tube. I'm not sure he found it. I have a stash I keep for church crafts, but it's in a plastic bag covered by other plastic bags in the linen closet. Or maybe there just happened to be an empty one in the trash. Anyway, somehow he found this toilet paper tube and then put a napkin over it. Then he wanted a rubber band. I told him to look in the drawer next to the silver ware. He shouted out joyously, "Mom, you're right! There are some here!" See, mom does know some things and is often right. So he wound up a rubber band around the napkin. Then I'm sure the TV show said to put rice or beans or sand or little pebbles in the tube or oatmeal carton. My son goes outside, probably doesn't see any little rocks or sand (that's dry) and comes back in with his hands full of cedar mulch. I'm not sure cedar mulch is supposed to make lots of sound in a shaker, especially after it rained. Anyway, in goes the mulch. Then we had to leave, so I told him we'd finish the shaker another day.
True to my word, we finish the shaker at lunch time. I suggested he put some rice in his shaker. Zach agreed that this was a good idea and proceeded to dump some rice in his little shaker, the rest went on the floor. He and his friend Daniel spent the next 20 minutes picking up kernel upon kernel of rice and trying to put it back in the rice bag. I saw Daniel picking up one little kernel at a time! It didn't dawn on me what they were doing until after Daniel and his parents left. I was cleaning up and noticed all this rice on the floor. So easy to sweep up, but must have been quite a task when using little fingers to pick up each kernel.

So here's a picture of Zach's shaker. I offered to trim the napkins around it so it would look nicer, but he said that if I did that, all the rice would fall out. He proceeded to show me how the rice was falling out. It didn't matter that it was because the rubber bands weren't on tight enough. He was convinced that it was because the napkins weren't covering the entire tube. Also, he was shaking the tube so roughly that half of it was already caved in. But the thing I like is that he took the initiative to create this shaker. There are some good things about TV. :)