Comments (12)

By Mom Unplugged, February 15, 2009 8:56 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project is wrinkle. We decided to do a little batik and experiment with wrinkling the wax.

You will need a piece of fabric (a natural fiber works best, we used a piece cut off of an old cotton sheet), wax, and a dye. We almost used beet juice, but finally decided on blue food coloring. As usual, I was ill-prepared and had no wax so we just melted some candle stubs. If you melt candles, be thoughtful about your choice of colors since colored wax will dye the fabric.

First we melted the candles in a tin can set in a pan of boiling water. We had white candles and green so we melted them separately and planned on using the green to help color our fabric.

We laid the cloth out on some wax paper and poured the wax on it. Be careful, the can will be very hot! First the white:

Then the green:

As you can see, we tried to cover most of the fabric since we really wanted to see the effect of wrinkling and cracking the wax. If you would like a different effect, then just cover parts of the fabric with wax, or pour on a design or pattern. The dye will not stick to any waxed portion of the fabric:

We let the wax dry and cool completely. The cloth was now as stiff as cardboard.

We crumpled and scrunched the stiff fabric and created cracks.

We put some blue food coloring in a bowl of cold water (hot would melt, or at least soften, the wax), and then we pushed the wax covered cloth in with a spoon. We left it in for an hour and the exposed areas turned a very pale blue. This step might not have been necessary, but at least it got the fabric wet and ready for more dye.

Next we laid the cloth out on a foil-lined baking sheet and dropped straight food coloring on to the cracks and spread it around.

What I learned - be sure to wear gloves if you are going to be handling food coloring! (This photo was taken AFTER I had washed them several times…)

I might be blue forever.

We let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes to let the color absorb, then we set about removing the wax. First we used knives to scrape off as much of the wax as possible.

I covered my ironing board with an old, folded towel and laid the fabric on a brown paper bag. I covered it with another brown paper bag and ironed with the iron on the highest setting but without steam.

The wax simply melted onto the bags. I replaced the bags a few times until no more wax appeared and it was all out of the fabric. We also tried paper towels, since I heard that they worked too, and they did quite well also.

Here is our finished fabric. The ironing dried it all nicely and we were able to work with it right away. Notice the green color in with the blue? The green is from the green candle wax, and is why we chose blue food coloring because we thought the two colors would look pretty together.

We had two little old notebooks that we covered with the dyed cloth using fabric glue.

We added a matching ribbon bookmark, and there you have it! A fun afternoon!

++++++++++

If you did a wrinkle Unplugged Project this week, then please put a link to your post in the Mr. Linky below. If you link to the post rather than the blog, then we will always be able to find you - forever and ever! If you did not do a wrinkle project, then please do not link, but be sure to follow the links to see the other great wrinkle projects. If you wish to read about how to join in, then read more here. We’d love to have you with us!

++++++++++

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

Clothing

I hope you all have fun!

++++++++++

Comments (12)

By Mom Unplugged, February 8, 2009 8:44 pm

I guess I must have picked float as the theme for this week’s Unplugged Project because last week’s marbleizing project involved floating a piece of paper in a baking tray of water. Well, I won’t do that again, because all I could think of all week long were ideas very similar to our marbleizing project. I was completely without inspiration.

Then this boring, snowy Sunday, as the kids were playing Calico Critters, I suddenly had the inspiration to try making a Calico Critter parachute. Parachutes float (…hopefully…)!

We gathered together some scarves of different sizes and fabrics to experiment with, some items for the “cockpit” (a small basket and a little nylon pouch that originally contained some fiberfill stuffing - I am glad to be a packrat, I knew that pouch would come in handy one day!), yarn, scissors, and a couple of fearless test-pilots:

First we cut four pieces of yarn all the same length. Then we tied one piece of yarn onto each corner of the scarf:

Next we attached our basket and pouch. In an effort to take weight into consideration, we decided to put the pouch on the cotton bandanna because the bandanna was heavier than the play silk and the pouch was lighter than the basket.

We tied the strings onto the pouch by bunching up the fabric just as we had done with the scarf.

We tied the basket on with a string on each handle and a string on each side in the middle in order to keep it as well-balanced as possible:

NOTE: Be careful tying the strings onto your “cockpit.” You want to keep them in order so that aren’t twisted and it can get a bit confusing, especially if your cloth is big and your strings long.

Also, you could simply tie your object directly on to the strings without having a container. I think it is more fun with a basket or a pouch though, that makes it much easier for children to experiment with different objects and toys.

The cats found this project to be particularly appealing. Strings plus soft things to lie on meant 5-star kitty excitement:

In popped the intrepid test-pilots, and off we went to the upstairs landing for launch.

Make sure you hold the parachute by pinching it in the center and dangling it all over the edge of the railing before dropping. Also, for best performance, the strings should not be twisted or tangled.

The bandanna went first - success!

Next was the playsilk. It didn’t crash, but it went down pretty fast. I thought that it might be because of the air flowing through the holes in the basket.

We lined the basket with a paper napkin and the second launch was perfect! The parachute floated gracefully down to the ground.

I am pleased to report that no Calico Critters were injured in the testing of the parachutes.

If you are curious, here’s a 5 second video of our silk parachute:

Link: How does a parachute work?

++++++++++

If you did a float Unplugged Project this week, please put your link in Mr. Linky below (link to your post, not just your blog please so your post will always be easy to find). It’s also wise to leave a comment so if Mr. Linky ever disappears, you won’t disappear with it! If you did not join in, then please do not link, but read more about how to join in here.

I am trying to visit at least a few projects every week, but I can’t always get to everyone anymore. I feel a bit bad about that, but blogging is not a full-time occupation for me, so I guess I can only do my best. I hope you all understand!

++++++++++

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

Wrinkle

Have fun!

++++++++++

Comments (24)

By Mom Unplugged, February 2, 2009 9:20 pm

This has actually (unintentionally) been a colorful week for us.

I haven’t mentioned Odyssey of the Mind (OM) here yet, but my friend Wishy and I just discovered it (actually she discovered it) and we dived right in last fall as coaches for our children’s Montessori class (1st - 4th grade). It’s a bit complicated to explain OM in this post, but suffice it to say that the children have to come up with an engineering or creative project entirely on their own. “Outside Assistance” is heavily penalized.

My 8 year-old daughter apparently has the role of a tree in her completely student-created play. She decided she wanted to dye some net green to be her leaves, so she chopped up an old artichoke that we happened to have in the kitchen and boiled the net in it to dye it green. It didn’t work so well. She then tried green food coloring. Not too effective either (I think it would have worked better on a natural fiber). That was all entirely her idea.

Personally I probably would have headed to Walmart for some green dye, or better yet, green net! But of course I couldn’t say that to her - “outside influence.” So, I look forward to seeing what possible solution she comes up with next.

I was so proud of my daughter’s initiative and creative thinking! These Unplugged Projects are more than just a diversion. I believe that they encourage original thought and teach that it is OK to not get it right at first. Just experiment to see what works, and if it doesn’t, then try and figure out how to make it work!

That was a bit of a tangent, but her experiments with dye got me thinking about food coloring and how we could incorporate that into the theme color. I began Googling food coloring and oil because I knew that the two don’t mix and I thought there might be something fun out there. I was quite excited to find this: Marvelous Marbling.

I have wanted to try marbelizing for a long time now. I have fond memories of loving it the time we did it in elementary school. Since the memory has stayed with me that long, it must have made a big impression!

Traditional marbleizing involves oil paint and turpentine. Frankly, I have never had the energy to tackle that. Turpentine - ick. This webpage tells how to marbleize using just food coloring and cooking oil. I had to try it! So we did. I made a few alterations - here is my version.

++++++++++

For this you’ll need a shallow pan that is large enough to fit the paper you’ll be using (I used a nasty old roasting pan), food coloring, cooking oil, white paper (we used card stock - NOTE: thick card stock produces as a nice result, thinner paper tends to get a bit greasy), water and an eye dropper. The eye dropper is optional, but we found it worked better than just pouring.

Put just enough water in the pan to cover the bottom (**VERY IMPORTANT!**). As we discovered, if the water is too deep, the color will sink if you work too slowly.

Put about 1/2 tablespoon oil and 1 teaspoon food coloring into a glass (we halved the proportions of the original since we only had tiny bottles of coloring and I didn’t want to use it all up).

The two ingredients will not be mixed. [NERDY SCIENCE NOTE: Oil and water don't mix due to dissimilar molecular bonds - "like dissolves like" and water molecules and oil molecules are not alike. Read more here: Ask a Scientist - Mixing Oil and Water and here is a good, simple tutorial about solubility and water: Water Tutorial]

At this point, the mixture will look something like this:

Beat it hard with a fork until well blended. It is like mixing an oil and vinegar salad dressing and will take a few minutes. We experimented with mixing it in a jar and shaking it up. That worked even better, just make sure the top is on tightly (we had a bit of a food coloring disaster the first time my daughter tried it).

When done, it will look more like this:

Using the dropper (or gently pouring if you don’t have a dropper), place drops of colors on top of the water. The drops will stay in a blob, or perhaps explode a bit. You can place one color inside another. Experiment.

When you have dots of color all over the surface of your water, use a toothpick, or a fork, or a feather (whatever you want to try) to make patterns in the colors. They’ll make blobs and swirls and pretty patterns.

When you are happy with the design, gently place your paper on top of the water. Leave it for a little bit. We waited until the oil started to show through the back of the paper (about 30 seconds?) and then peeled it gently off.

There will be lots of oohs and aahs as the pattern is revealed!

That one reminded me of a medical slide. LOL! Here are is another pretty one:

We even tried hot water vs. cold water. Knowing that molecules move faster in hot water, we wanted to see if anything different happened to our oil/color mix in really hot water. We didn’t see anything too dramatic, but my daughter did note that the blobs converged a bit more quickly. (For more on hot vs. cold liquids, please read my post: Molecules in Motion).

Let the paper dry then use it for cards, wrapping paper, framed art, whatever you want. Ours will become thank you notes.

According to my 8 year-old daughter, this is her “new favorite project!”

++++++++++

For more color project ideas, please check out all the links here.

++++++++++

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

Float

Hope to see you then! (If you want to join us, please read about how to here.)

++++++++++

(marbelized)

Comments (12)

By Mom Unplugged, January 18, 2009 11:00 pm

Thanks to a suggestion from Meg at Bare Baby Feet, this week’s Unplugged Project theme is balance. We felt “sciency” this week, so my oldest daughter and I scoured our favorite science book but found nothing that sounded fun to her.

I did a few Google searches and happened across this amazing-seeming experiment. I tried it and then showed it to my children who were very impressed. As you will see, I tried to make it even more fun for kids by modifying it to make a balance toy: a flying bird. Read on for more!

THE SCIENCE:

This experiment (which I understand is often shown as a magic trick), involves two identical sharp forks, a real cork (a real one is a bit softer and easier to use than a plastic one), a toothpick, and a glass. Push the forks into the sides of the cork.

They should be in the middle of the cork, directly opposite each other. The cork will not be in alignment with the forks. Try to have the forks at a 90 degree angle to each other, like this:

Push a toothpick into the end of the cork, on the side between the forks (be careful, the toothpick breaks easily, so be gentle). You will have something like this:

Experiment by balancing the toothpick on your finger. It seems impossible, but once you find the right spot, the forks will just balance. You can mark that spot on the toothpick with a marker, or just remember about where it was.

Place the balance point of the toothpick on the edge of a glass. The forks should remain suspended on the side of the glass. Pretty amazing!

Now, for the grand and very dramatic finale! Take a match and light the end of the toothpick on fire (yes, I really did say to set fire to the toothpick - YOU, not your kids of course :-) ). The flame will move up the toothpick, burning it into nothingness. The fire will stop when it reaches the rim of the glass.

Does the cork fall down? NO! It stays put, hanging by practically nothing on the rim of the glass. You can even lift it off and place it back on, barely touching the rim, and the whole thing will balance.

Here’s a video I made of the toothpick burning (I have never put a homemade video on my blog before so I really hope it works). Watch closely and you’ll see that my son tried to knock the whole thing off the glass at the end of the video but it just bobbed up and down and returned to its original position. Very stable!

How does this seemingly magical “trick” work? Warning: science stuff coming up - feel free to skip to the next section if this is all “blah blah blah” to you.

The secret to understanding this experiment involves a study of center of gravity and pivot point. The center of gravity is “the point about which you can balance the object as if all the masses were concentrated or gathered at this point“ or “the average location of the weight of the object.” Imagine balancing a see-saw.

But the center of gravity does not necessarily have to be on the object itself. Here it is actually in the open space between the forks. This means that, unlike a see-saw, the object is not balancing on its center of gravity (“CG”). Instead it is balanced on a separate pivot point (the toothpick on the edge of the glass) away from the center of gravity.

We had to arrange the forks so that their mass was a bit lower than the center line of the cork in order to insure that the CG remained lower than the pivot point. Since the CG is lower, if the fork assembly is displaced, the CG will be raised and gravity will pull it back to equilibrium. You can see this in my video. All balance toys have a CG that is below their pivot point. (NOTE: I am NOT a scientist! Any physicists out there may disagree with my terminology, etc., but I am trying to make this as simple an explanation as possible.)

THE FLYING BIRD:

Not wanting to use my good forks as permanent bird wings, I had to think of something else. A matching pair of thrift store forks would have been ideal, but the thrift stores were all closed today. I ended up using a set of small screwdrivers that came from the bargain bin at the local hardware store, and that turned out to be not what my husband expected. There were four screw drivers, so by using two corks, my daughter and I were each able to make a bird.

We stuck them into the sides of the cork at the appropriate angles (see above). They were actually easier to get in there than the forks were.

TIP: Test “fly” your configuration on a glass before proceeding further. Adjust the screwdrivers (or forks) now if necessary to get it right. I didn’t check mine before-hand and had to fiddle later after the feathers were on.

To create a good surface for sticking on feathers, I cut construction paper into a symmetrical wing shape. By folding the paper and cutting double thickness (while keeping a portion of the fold intact) this was easy:

We then covered each screwdriver with a paper wing and stapled it so that the screwdriver was hidden inside. Staple as close to the screwdriver as you can so the wings stay on. It doesn’t matter if the staples are in the middle of the paper because you are going to completely cover the paper with feathers.

Paint your cork if you want to.

Next, glue on feathers. We had “natural-looking” feathers and “fake-looking” feathers, both from Walmart a long time ago. I opted for a colorful, fake bird. My daughter chose to be more natural. Elmer’s white glue didn’t work so well, so I broke out the hot glue gun and we began sticking on feathers.

I found an old jar to be a useful stand for our sticky birds while they dried, as well as for painting the underside of the cork.

After things have dried a bit, you’ll need eyes (googly or beads) and a beak of some sort. We cut the tips off some new crayons with scissors to make our beaks and they made perfect beaks! Glue them on with the glue gun.

If you haven’t already, carefully stick a toothpick in the back end of the bird.

Once everything is well dry, you can “fly” your birds on the edge of a glass. If properly balanced, they’ll bob up and down when touched, but won’t fall off. PLEASE don’t try the flame trick since you don’t want to risk setting all the glue and feathers on fire!

++++++++++

If you did a balance project this week, then please link to your project post in Mr. Linky below. I really prefer links to project posts rather than blogs in general, so that readers will always be able to find your project no matter how far down it is buried in your blog. If you did not do a balance project, please do not link. Read more about how to participate here. We’d love to have you join us!

++++++++++

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

Ball

Have fun!

++++++++++

Comments (16)

By Mom Unplugged, January 14, 2009 10:25 am

Thanks to a wonderfully creative music teacher at my children’s Montessori school, the latest fad around our house are little homemade guitars/harps like that shown above. The kids are loving putting different sized rubber bands around my food storage containers and then experimenting with the sounds produced.

The sound reminds me of a kalimba. It’s a little hard on me when I need to put away some food and can’t find any containers, but…oh well. I can adjust.

These simple little string instruments made me think that a post about quick and easy homemade musical instruments might be fun to write. I obviously won’t be anywhere close to covering all the homemade musical options, so if you think of something I forgot, please leave your idea in the comments.

If you are here because you are looking for musical instrument ideas, then be sure to read the comments for more ideas. Unplug Your Kids readers are very creative!

Here are my ideas:

• Let gourds or squash dry out. Once they are completely dry, the exterior will be hard and when you shake them, the seeds will rattle around inside. You’ll have some nice, natural maracas.

• Quick maracas: Fill plastic Easter eggs with rice or lentils and tape shut. Instant shakers!

• Paper plate maracas: Put some dried beans on a small paper plate. Cover with another, upside down paper plate. Staple the two plates together around the edges to seal them shut. Add a cardboard or popsicle stick handle if you want, then decorate. Here is ours:

• Wrap tissue paper around a fine tooth comb and make “Doo-doo-doo” noises through it for a kazoo sound.

• Flip over empty cylindrical cardboard oatmeal containers and bang on the bottom to make a drum.

• Line up a row of glasses and fill each with a different amount of water. Tap them with a spoon and note the different pitches. Play a tune!

• If you have a thin-rimmed wine glass, fill it with water. Wet your finger and rub it slowly and gently around the rim to create your own glass harmonica. It might take a bit of experimenting to figure out exactly what pressure you need, but the results are impressive. Experiment with more water in the glass and less water. What happens to the pitch? What about an empty glass?
  NOTE: Benjamin Franklin invented a mechanical glass harmonica like this modern one based on his design (he called it an “armonica”):

If you have never heard it, you must listen to the rather fairy-like sound of an armonica!

Can you play a tune with several glasses with different levels of water? You might not sound

this good

, but it’ll be fun!

• Blow across a glass soda or beer bottle like you would play a flute. Unless you play the flute, it’ll take a bit of practice. Adjust the angle of the bottle against your lips until you get it right. It will make a lovely tone. Different levels of liquid will produce different tones. What about lining up many bottles with different levels of liquid and playing a song?

(NOTE: Great related link - Bottled Music. This link tells exactly how much water is needed in a twenty ounce bottle to produce each particular note of the scale, and even has instructions for playing Row Row Row your boat on the bottles.)

• Craft idea: Cricket Chirping Sticks:

I didn’t think these sounded too much like crickets, but they do make a cool sound for your musical instrument collection! Learn how to make them here.

• Another craft idea: Sandpaper blocks - Wrap sandpaper around two blocks and attach it to the back with thumbtacks. For easier handling you might want to attach a knob to the back of each block (with glue or screws). Rub the blocks together for a cool sound. Try coarser and finer paper for different sounds.

And of course, the obvious: turn your 2 year-old loose in your pots and pans cupboard for lots of drums, cymbals and noise music.

That’s it for what’s in my brain right now, but Googling “homemade musical instruments” produces lots of cool results.

Here are links to a few of my favorites:

Jingle Sticks

Rainstick

Didgeridoo

Inventing Homemade Instruments with Math and Measurement (a wonderful website that teaches the science of music!)

Artists Helping Children (a very long list of many musical instrument craft links - useful!)

For a book that has some fun instrument games and activity ideas for young (preschool) children to use their homemade (or non-homemade) simple instruments, consider 101 Rhythm Instrument Activities: for Young Children by Abigail Flesch Connors:

NOTE: This is a great book to use with young children, older ones might find it boring.