Weekly Unplugged Project- Petal

I have a secret plan to try to use up ALL the craft sticks in the house. Of course we will never really run out but it's nice to have a goal. :) There just seems like there is a neverending supply. Here is one such project using craft sticks. And incorporating the Weekly Unplugged Theme of Petals.

This was a collaborative project. He colored the "stems" (craft sticks!) green one day and then lost interest. So my niece cut and glued on the petals with me the next day. Then after they dried...

I had them play this game with the flowers they had made. They started off with one flower and had to run down the yard and stick it in the ground by the other flowers then run back grab another flower and do the same thing. They each had 3 flowers to stick in the ground. It was easier because the ground was still damp from all the rain. Next time I would have them run down to a pot with dirt in it and stick the flowers in. Would have been much easier! You live you learn.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Magic

For this weeks Unplugged Project I pulled the only two "magic tricks" I know out of my hat. :) I have remembered these since I was a kid. We did the "I bet I can walk through this piece of paper" trick and the "Bet I can put pins/needles/thumbtacks into this balloon without popping it" trick. You love my terminology I know.

Cut along the lines and then cut only the middle apart and walk through!



Scotch tape was the secret in this magic trick.

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.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Science

Both of the "experiments" we did today today for The Weekly Unplugged Project came from this book: Simple Science Experiments With Everyday Materials

For the first one we took 1 tsp of baking soda and 1oz of water and dissolved it in the bottom of an empty water bottle. Then he poured in the 2 oz of vinegar and I QUICKLY slipped the balloon over the top of the bottle. And...tada the balloon inflated. (because of carbon dioxide you create)

The next project was called Magic Colors. This took some time. He painted the front of two circles blue and the back of one yellow and the back of the other red. (I held them when he painted the backs.) Then we hung them up to dry and then we waited and waited and waited...When they were mostly dry I poked holes (two on each side) and threaded some string through them. Then you are supposed to twirl it a around and then release it and your eyes are supposed to see the color purple for the red/blue one and green for the yellow/blue one. At first it didn't work because our circles were too big. So we cut down the circles and tada! It worked! Make sure to look right at the circle.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Transportation

This weeks Unplugged Project Theme was easy. Transportation. Someone has been OBSESSED with The Titanic lately and this was a perfect opportunity to do a project I had been planning anyways. We made a book featuring The Titanic with the story and pictures by the little guy. He knows way more about the Titanic than the book says. :) All he draws is the Titanic so he's had a lot of practice. He really liked making his own book and said today was the best day of his life. Haha.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Words

This weeks Unplugged Project theme was Words.

We did Unscramble The Sentence. I wrote down short sentences out of a well loved book and cut apart the words mixed them up and had him put the sentence back in order.

We also played with the Alphabet/Word Chart.

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.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Water

This week Unplugged Project was water. Which just happens to be one of our favorite things to play with. Anything to do with water is usually a hit around here, including taking baths and washing dishes.

The first thing we did was the Montessori based "thermic bottles". I took my thrift store glass bottles again and had him fill up two Ice Cold bottles using a small funnel. I filled up the room temperature and warm ones. Two for each temperature. I was not sure if he'd be able to tell the difference between the warm and room temperature ones but he knew right away that they were different and matched them up after carefully testing each one by wrapping his hand around each one.

We also did water transferring using a dropper. We used cups of Yellow and Blue water and wehn mixed in the flower ice cube tray it turned green. Magic, huh? He kinda lost interest in this about half way through. Using the dropper is way too time consuming for him. I need to find a bigger, better dropper anyways.

The last "water" activity came from Flip Flops and Applesauce. Rainy day splatter painting. I cut out the half circles and had him use the scalloped edge sissocers to trim the bottom edge. Then he glued them onto the paper. After drawing a few handles myself he wanted to do the rest so he did. Then the fun part we used watered down blue and white paint to make light blue and dipped an old toothbrush in it and SPLATTERED it all over the picture to look like rain.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Happy

This weeks Unplugged Project was Happy easy enough, right? We do things all the time that make us Happy. So I went a little literal and we made a Bluebird of Happiness. (click the link for more detailed instructions.

We painted two Styrofoam balls blue. We let them dry (kinda!) then stuck them together with a piece of a skewer. Then we added the googly eyes, feathers and legs (more pieces of skewers) and a beak (skewer painted orange).

Weekly Unplugged Project- Bottle

This week for The Weekly Unplugged Project the theme was Bottle.I finally got to make use of the little glass bottles I bought at the Thrift Store for $1.29!
After going through ideas for bottle I knew we already did an I Spy bottle with rice and an ocean in a bottle, so I wanted something different. He's into anything with water and we've been working on color mixing for awhile so this idea was born.

First, using a funnel (for the first time) he poured water into each glass bottle.

Then he followed the "recipe" cards to color the water. We used 6 bottles and made 6 colors!

Then of course, he wanted to mix them all up.

This always fits in with the rainbow theme and all the rainbow projects I have been wanting to do.

Weekly Unplugged Project- Clothing

This is our first week participating in The Weekly Unplugged Challenge over at Unplug Your Kids. The theme was "Clothing" and I couldn't think of ANYTHING to do with real clothes except Tie Dye and I didn't have enough time to do that this week. (even though I really want to do it soon!) So after looking at some of the other entries I came up with two ideas.

The first one I printed off from here: Making Learning Fun.

It was a little too easy for him. Here's "Indy" putting it together:



The next project was Clothesline addition problems. I wrote the equations on the Pants and the answers on the shirts. He liked it a lot more than I thought. The only problem was the clothespins were too heavy for the paper clothes. Not enough planning ahead on my part. I am going to look for mini clothespins or something next time I am out and about.

The Problem.



Edit: March 1
Found mini clothespins and they work so much better and are so cute!