Comments (12)

By Mom Unplugged, May 3, 2009 7:22 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was powder. I’ll admit that this particular choice was somewhat premeditated since I thought a baking soda project would be fun. Baking soda is a powder, right?

Fondly remembering a baking soda boat that came in a cereal box once when I was a child, I suggested we try and make one. My children were enthusiastic but leery, remembering a particularly violent baking soda volcano we made one time!

I am sure they were rolling their eyes and thinking:

“Oh no, here goes Mom with the baking soda again.”

Is that what they’ll remember about me as adults?

“I don’t remember much about Mom, but she did like playing with baking soda and vinegar.”

I found instructions here on the PBS Zoom website for a boat made out of a plastic bottle. Never being able to simply do what instructions say, I had to experiment, so we tried a sippy cup boat too!

We needed baking soda, vinegar, and our bottle and cup.

Using a hammer and nail, we made a hole in the cap of the bottle. The hole is the exhaust pipe through which the carbon dioxide gas escapes propelling the “boat” through the water.

The sippy cup already had holes of course, but I covered up the vent hole with some masking tape so the only vents would be in the spout.

Supplies in hand, we eagerly headed off to the bathroom and put some water in the bathtub.

The Zoom website suggested wrapping the baking soda in toilet paper to slow the reaction. Remembering my volcano, I thought this might be wise advice.

We poured baking soda onto a strip of toilet paper:

And rolled it up:

We tried the sippy cup first and poured in some vinegar.

Next we put in a few marbles to weigh down the spout (where the “exhaust holes” are), so it would be underwater. Coins work too. It is important that the exhaust holes be under the water line so there will be more resistance (of the water) to propel the boat.

The kids cringed when I dropped in the toilet paper package containing the baking soda.

I quickly put the cap on and placed the cup in the tub. The cup whizzed around the tub accompanied by many oohs and aahs.

The toilet paper worked nicely to delay the reaction giving me time to put the top on, but on the second attempt the toilet paper clogged the exhaust hole stopping the “boat.”

We tried the bottle too. Same procedure: vinegar, toilet paper/baking soda and marbles. The bottle sailed around the tub.

Since we were having clogging problems with the toilet paper, we also got brave and dumped the baking soda in, poured in some vinegar and tried to get the top on quickly. Unfortunately we were never able to be quick enough, and those boats didn’t work as well since, as you can see here, a large part of the chemical reaction occurred before the top was on.

In light of my baking soda and vinegar obsession, this could become quite a project: how to control the reaction without clogging, what sized hole produces the best results, what proportions of baking soda and vinegar generate the most power. Nerd heaven! Look out for a blog post one day with my perfected version of this project.

My kids went on to create their own experiment with baking soda and vinegar in a plastic wipe box:

Fortunately we ran out of baking soda before they were able to blow the box open!

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LINKS:

Chemistry and ideas: Baking Soda and Vinegar Science

Real Science: Ask a Scientist-Vinegar and Baking Soda

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Did you join us this week for a powder Unplugged Project? If so, please link to your powder project post (not your blog) below. If you didn’t join in, then please don’t link but read more about how it all works here. We’d love to have you!

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Magic

Have fun!

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Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, May 2, 2009 9:06 pm

Thanks so much Kate for sending me the story of your Turnoff Week! Here are Kate’s words about how her week went:

As a non-blogger, I usually enjoy your blog as a “silent” listener. But I did want to share our experiences of Turnoff Week.

I wasn’t expecting Turnoff Week to be much of a challenge — after all, the kids only get to watch DVDs once a week, on Movie Night, and perhaps a ten minute internet session once or twice a week in addition if I have to make an urgent phone call. As a result they almost never ask for screen time and so there’s no drama about not having it.

But Turnoff Week coincided with a nasty infection picked up from preschool which saw Mom, Dad, Nana visiting from England, kid 1 and kid 2 all visiting the doctor, and six courses of antibiotics between the five of us. So with Mom and Nana feverish in bed, kids feverish but not sick enough to want to lie down, what’s to do… but turn on the TV!

So our kids spend Turnoff Week watching at least an hour or two of DVDs every day, including one memorable day with everyone snuggled up in bed together for three hours watching ‘They Might be Giants’ ‘Here Come the ABCs’ on the laptop.

So I think we get an ‘F’. But it reminded me what I like and hate about TV. Positives: useful when sick or anxious kids need a totally passive activity, or sick parents need to keep them entertained without effort; and there’s some good stuff to take from it - 4 yr old has picked up on many of the TMBG’s tunes and is improvising on them, jazz-style; 2 yr old has suddenly started to identify letters on signs around the neighborhood. Negatives: well, we all know the negatives.

Everyone was better by Sunday so now dealing with the inevitable increased requests for screen time, some of which we give in to, most of which we distract from. A couple more days and we’ll be back to normal.

Better luck next year! Thanks for such an inspiring blog - though we are silent watchers, we enjoy it very much and often make use of your ideas.

Kate

Thank you so much for giving it a go and I am glad to hear that everyone is feeling better now. TV is truly a useful tool with sick children (especially when Mom is sick too). I really like your positive points. I always hope to emphasize here that TV has its benefits when used in moderation, and you mention some very important ones!

I am glad you joined in and decided to send me your report. We all appreciate it!

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Did you give Turnoff Week a try and have no blog with which to share your experiences? If you want, feel free to send me an email about how it went for you and your family. I’ll publish your words here and enter you in my drawing for a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate. Read more about it here.

Comments (12)

By Mom Unplugged, April 27, 2009 8:16 pm

It’s over!

For those of you who decided to join us for the 3rd Annual Turnoff Week Blog Challenge, it’s time to “fess up” and tell us how it went!

~~OUR REPORT CARD~~

ME: For me the big challenge is always to get away from the computer. I didn’t do so well. I have just set up a non-profit Ebay account benefiting my children’s Montessori School and unfortunately listing items for auction takes a long time. I give myself an F.

MY OLDEST TWO KIDS: My children didn’t even know it was Turnoff Week. They played, read books, worked on art projects etc. Neither of my older two children ever asked for a video or a computer game, so I didn’t have to turn them down. They get an A+.

MY YOUNGEST CHILD: My 3 year-old daughter asked for nothing all week until Saturday. I let her watch one video on Saturday. On Sunday she wanted another. Before I could say anything, my 8 year-old girl said “I’ll take care of this Mom” and unplugged the TV (she obviously remembered the plot of Fix-It by David McPhail). She then said to her younger sister: “The TV isn’t working, see?” After my youngest had checked the TV and then confirmed with Mom and Dad that neither Mom nor Dad knew how to fix TVs, she went happily off into her kitchen to play.

It was deception, but it worked. She hasn’t asked for a video since!

She gets a B+ and I get another F for engaging in sneakiness - but it worked without a tantrum, so maybe I’ll raise my score on this one to a C.

ENCOURAGING NOTE: One thing I have observed with my children which might be encouraging to other parents, is that once they get over the first hump of reading fluency, they seem to have much less interest in videos and spend a great deal of their non-play time reading.

This was certainly true with my 8 year-old daughter when she became comfortable with independent reading, but she was never a huge video watcher to begin with.

It was far more remarkable with my 6 year-old son. He was always the one who would have been Mr. TV had I allowed it. In the past few months he has suddenly taken off with his reading and is rarely found without a chapter book in his hand. He honestly seems to have forgotten that the TV ever existed. My husband and I are absolutely astonished!

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That was how it went for me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So how did you do?

Remember, for everyone who signed up for the challenge beforehand, you will be entered in a random drawing for a $10 Amazon gift certificate if you write a final blog post about how your week went, and link to that blog post here. Please link before Wednesday, May 6th. May 6th is the day that I will draw a winner from among those who have completed the challenge by linking to their final post here.

For readers who have no blog but participated in Turnoff Week, please email me a summary of how it went for you and I will publish it here (without your full name or email address of course). I will then include you in the drawing too! Please be sure to send it before next Monday, May 4th so I have time to post it before the drawing on Wednesday. For more information about non-bloggers (including my email), please read here.

The more feedback we have from people, the more we can all learn. I would like to send a HUGE thank you to all who gave this a try! I look forward to learning from you!

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, April 27, 2009 12:22 pm

Hi there! Did you survive Turnoff Week? My post about our week will be up later today or tonight. That’s also were the Linky will be for those of you who took part in the 3rd Annual Turnoff Week Blog Challenge to link to your blog’s wrap-up post.

Did you have a chance to do a yellow Weekly Unplugged Project yet?

We haven’t done the project yet, but here is the Linky for those of you who did get to it and would like to share your link to your project post.

If you didn’t do it please don’t link, but read more about how to join in here if you want. We’d love to have you!

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Powder

Good luck, be creative, and HAVE FUN!

Comments (4)

By Mom Unplugged, April 25, 2009 8:07 am

I have had a few emails and comments from non-bloggers who are interested in joining the 3rd annual Turnoff Week Blog Challenge. Instead of replying individually, I’ll post instructions here. I’d love to have you join in too (and you’ll be included in the drawing for the $10 Amazon Gift Certificate)!

1) After April 26th (the last day of Turnoff Week), send me an email with a description of how your Turnoff Week went: what were your goals beforehand, what was easy, what was harder, was there anything surprising…that kind of thing. Just tell us how it went. Remember, be honest, if it wasn’t perfect that’s totally OK and normal. We want to learn from your experiences!

2) I’ll publish your content (not your full name or email address of course) here on Unplug Your Kids.

3) You’ll be entered in the drawing, but be sure to email me before Monday May 4th since the drawing will be Wednesday May 6th.

My email is this blog’s name “AT” gmail dot youknowwhat. (Sorry for the odd way of putting it, but there a bad bots out there on the lookout for email addresses).