Weekly Unplugged Project- Powder

Does flour and baking soda count as powder? I sure hope so. So today for the Weekly Unplugged Project we used his favorite product FLOUR and made stress balls. We made some with flour and some with baking soda. We didn't have any cornstarch. :) Or a real funnel and my homemade one was a total FAIL. While we had balloons out to tried to make bean bags like Flip Flops and Applesauce. So not as cute as hers! Plus my computer died in the middle of reading the directions fully.

Flour and Peas and Sieves oh my!

"Indy" ALWAYS asks to play with the flour when we cook anything involving it. I let him every now and then. When I saw this idea at The Wonder Years I knew I had to try it. I used flour and black eyed peas that we usually use for counting activities. He put the black eyed peas into the flour and stirred it up. Then he used the sieve to fish the peas out. It worked really well. Our sieve wasn't as small or cute as The Wonder Years one but it was small enough for him to handle. He learned to tap the sieve against his other palm to shake the flour out. Of course all the tools were soon abandoned for his hands!

Homemade Playdough

I can never remember which recipe I like the best for play dough so we always use a different one. :) I found this one via a google search for Best Play Dough Recipe and it gave me Super Crunchy Mamas site. Here is her recipe:

1 cup water

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp cream of tartar

1/2 cup of salt

several drops of food coloring

1 cup of flour

Visit her site to get detailed directions.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Long

The Weekly Unplugged Project this week was long. We took the noodles/pasta we dyed last week (that will be another post) and I cut a long piece are yarn. We threaded on the colored noodles. I started at one end and he started at the other end and threaded until we thought it was loooong enough.

I have been wanting to make this Snake since I first saw it and I thought today would be a good day since it's also kinda long. And rainbow colored. :)

I had to use a drill for the first time today. I drilled a hole in the bottoms of plastic eggs. Then we strung them together. I pushed the yarn through because my holes weren't very good. Then he pushed them together at the bottom. You use a whole egg with holes drilled through the top and bottom for the ends.

The Day After St. Patricks Day

The actual St. Patrick's Day was kinda weird. We had an older brother home sick and the little one can't really concentrate on anything but him when he's around. We did have a Treasure Hunt for some chocolate coins but that's about it. So, Wednesday we did some St. Patrick's Day/Green oriented activities.

I used the green colored cards from my old Phase 10 deck and some green glass stones to have him practice his counting and number order.

We got the colored rice out again and I hid special green coins in it for him to find. He did this for a long time.

We also did another "rainbow" project. I found this nifty "rainbow maker" for $1.75 at the store. It was pretty fun/interesting. The three colored brushes come off so they can be used separately or stuck together to make rainbows. The paint tablet is in the sponge applicator so you just have to dip it in water and paint! He wanted to cover every square inch of his giant piece of paper.

What's that sound?

Last night I made the Sound "Cylinders" I have been wanting to make for a long time. I just didn't have enough of the same type of containers that weren't clear to use. Then I saw this post over at Teaching Tiny Tots. Sound eggs! You can find more information about Montessori Sound Cylinders here.

This project was so easy! I took plastic eggs and found things to fill them with different things that would sound different when shook. Fill two eggs with the same items.
I used:
Glass rocks
Pennies
Beads
Rice
Sugar
Flour
Cotton Balls
Cheerios
Then I taped them shut!

I did not use the same color for the same sound. I thought it would be too easy for him. He worked this out pretty fast without using the same colors!

Playing With Colored Rice

We colored rice using this recipe:

Materials:

• uncooked rice
• food coloring
• rubbing alcohol

To food color rice, add a healthy amount of food coloring to two 1 tsp of rubbing alcohol in a ziploc bag.

Pour in about 3/4 cup of UNCOOKED rice.

Close the bag

Shake well

Taken from: Here-DLTKs