Teachers and parents, are you looking for a fun and different math activity for your students or kids?  Then you’ll be happy to learn that tomorrow, March 3rd 2010, is World Math(s) Day!

Teachers can sign their classes up to participate in this online math contest with same-aged students (5-18 years) from around the globe for a chance to win prizes.  Individual students or homeschooling families can register too. This year for the first time there is even a category for teachers and parents who want to join in the fun.  Plus, it is all COMPLETELY FREE!

Here is how it works:

“Students play at home and at school against other students around the world in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play up to 500 games, earning points for each correct answer. The students who answer the most questions appear in the Hall of Fame. Students cannot select their level but will move up as they progress.”

(“About World Maths Day,” from the World Maths Day website)

So far there are over 2 million students from 37,000 schools in 200 countries registered for tomorrow’s event.   The goal is to beat last year’s world record of correctly answering 452,681,681 questions!

I had fun just browsing the lists of students and classes registered from an amazing array of locations.  It would make for a great geography lesson in addition to the math fun!

Head on over right now and register your students, children, and yourself!

LINKS:

World Maths Day 2010 Website

World Maths Day 2010 Official Blog

The Unplugged Project theme for the month of March will be:  Sphere

The linky is below and will remain open until April 1st.  On April 1st I will post a new Unplugged Project theme.

If you are wondering what the Unplugged Project is, then please read more about it here.  We’d love to have you join in!

The basics are the following:

• Please only link if you have done a project that is related to the theme.  Don’t just put your website in there because you like the idea of the project.  I appreciate the support, but if I don’t see a project, then I’ll have to delete your link.

• Please don’t link until you actually have a post to link to.  The post should not simply describe an intention, but document an actual completed project.

• When you link, please link to your POST, not just your blog.  I am trying to build a library of project ideas, so we want people to always be able to find your project in the future.  If you link simply to your blog, they won’t be able to find your post later on.  (Feel free to email me if you have a question about this.)

• Don’t worry about the “accuracy” of your connection to the theme.  Be creative, have fun, and think “outside the box” if you wish.  For example, the theme was once soft and we made moth feeders out of soft cotton balls.  Another time the theme was kitchen and we made Oobleck because it was made with cornstarch which is a substance you find in the kitchen, right?  If you think about it, you can find a connection with almost anything and that is what is really fun!

• If you have the time, energy, and inspiration to come up with more than one project for sphere that’s great!  Feel free to link to each sphere project separately in the linky.

• If you have no blog, then please leave a comment on this post with a description of what you did.  The more ideas we get, the better!

• It takes a lot of time and energy to put this project together and I would greatly appreciate a link to Unplug Your Kids in your project post.  Thank you and enjoy!

Photo is from Wikipedia, by Andrzej Barabasz.

I promised another Spiral Unplugged Project post and I am finally here with it – at the eleventh hour (a new Monthly Unplugged Project theme begins tomorrow)!

All day yesterday I was looking after four girls in addition to my own two girls (my son was very happy to escape this overdose of estrogen by fleeing to a friend’s house).

The age of the girls ranged from 4 to 11 and after boredom appeared to be setting in, I tried this totally retro idea out on them:  Spirograph Shrinky Dinks.  Just 3 words:  THEY-LOVED-IT.

I had bought some shrink plastic at a Michael’s craft store on my last trip to the big city.  We pinned the Spirograph rings on to the plastic sheets with no problems.  NOTE:  The frosted type of paper worked out best with markers, the shiny white tended to smear.

Since my original Spirograph ball point pens were long dead after 30+ years, I had also bought some fine point Sharpies in many different colors and they worked great!  The tip was small and long enough to fit through the holes in the Spirograph disks and produce beautiful results.

Before they went in the oven, we punched holes in some of the finished Shrinky Dinks.  A regular one-hole paper punch works fine and, once shrunk, produces a hole large enough for a thread or fine wire.   If you need to thread on something larger than that, then punch several times to make a bigger hole.

The girls strung them on thread to make necklaces.  I actually have an even fancier idea in mind, so check back!

If you like this, then be sure to read my original Spirograph post.  To find out how to make your own Shrinky Dink plastic from home trash, don’t miss my Homemade Shrinky Dinks post!

The theme for this month’s Unplugged Project is spiral.  All along I had been thinking Spirograph and dug out my old Spirograph sets (yes, I am a packrat!), but we haven’t had a chance to play with those yet.

Coincidentally, my husband gave each of the kids a gift bag full of Valentine’s Day goodies, including a very cute, small, heart-shaped Spirograph-type toy!  They pulled those out this afternoon and had a blast with them.  It was their first time playing with such a thing (although the results reminded the kids of our very fun string art project).

It is still a bit hard for my 4 year-old to manage on her own (holding frame still and keeping the gear tracking along the teeth), but she loved it and it seems like a great exercise in fine motor skills.

When I was a child, the classic Kenner Spirograph was as ubiquitous as Crayola Crayons or Play-Doh.  Everyone had one!  But nowadays, as far as I can tell, this is considered a “vintage toy” that can only be found at places like Ebay.  Am I vintage too??  Feeling a little old here…

Anyhow, I have lots of not-so-vintage ideas of things to do with our Spirograph creations.  Hopefully we’ll get to try them and post about it before the end of the month.

LINKS:

• There are still Spirograph-like sets out there.

• Here’s a simple one that looks pretty good to me: Hypotrochoid Art Set.

• The mathematics and history of Spirograph.

• Find a real Spirograph set on Ebay!

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Do you have a spiral-themed project to share?  Then please consider joining our Monthly Unplugged Project and link to your post here.  Read more about the Monthly Unplugged Project here!

$1,350.03

That’s how much a class of thirteen 6 to 9 year-olds raised for

Partners in Health’s Haiti relief fund

with a simple Book & Bake Sale!

If they can do it, you can do it too!

How they did it:

Two weeks ahead of time:

• They hung a sign on the school door asking for donations of books and baked goods for our Haiti fundraiser.
• They placed an empty box in the school entryway for collecting the books.
• They also put a sealed box in the lobby for any impromptu donations.

Day before, set-up:

• The day before the sale they accepted baked goods.
• After school they sorted the books into children and adult piles.
• They organized the children’s books into separate boxes and baskets based on level (picture books, readers, chapter books).
• Everything was set up on tables in our tiny school entryway with a simple pricing system posted.

The Sale:

• The morning of the sale, they set up the baked goods outside the door on a table (it was so cold and snowy that there was no danger of spoilage!).
• The school is on a side street, so they put out a sign on the main road nearby.  They also put signs in the grocery store and the library.  All signs said clearly that proceeds would be for Haiti.
• The sealed box went to a prominent location on the book table, with a basket nearby with a few small bills and coins for making change.
• They hung a Haitian flag and also posted some information about Partners in Health so any interested people could read more about where their money would be going.

Post-Sale:

• I helped them sort through the leftover books and we separated the ones that were fairly recent and looked pretty new.
• We took these “good” leftovers to our local bookstore so the owner could buy any that would work for her used book section. She ended up buying almost all of them, and even gave us more than her normal cash price since we were doing this for Haiti!  (Be sure to let a bookstore know that you are selling for Haiti)
• The kids packed up the other books and we put them in storage for our annual school yard sale.

Counting:

• Practical math lesson:  The children counted the cash and were SO excited, especially when they found a $100 bill in the box!
• Their teacher counted the checks for privacy reasons (NOTE:  For ease of accounting, we made sure people made their checks out directly to Partners in Health and not to our school).
• I took the cash to the bank and traded it in for a cashiers check made out to Partners in Health.

And voilà!  Not a whole lot of effort really, but now we have a nice donation to send off to Partners in Health and the kids feel GREAT!

Why not try it with your school?

For more fundraising ideas, please read Help Your Kids Help Haiti.

Welcome to the new Monthly Unplugged Project!

February’s Unplugged Project theme is spiral.  Remember, the theme will be up for a month now instead of just a week.  I will close this linky on March 1st and also open up a new one for a new theme.

The “rules” are basically the same:

• If you do a spiral Unplugged Project, then please link to your project post, not just your blog.  I am trying to build a library of project ideas, so we want people to always be able to find your project in the future.
• If you don’t do a spiral project, then please DO NOT LINK.  I will remove any links that clearly do not fit the theme at all, no matter how nice your blog is.  Sorry, nothing personal, but I just want to keep this organized.
• A link back to Unplug Your Kids in your project post would be greatly appreciated!  :-)
• If you have the time, energy, and inspiration to come up with more than one project for spiral, then feel free to link to each spiral project separately in the linky.
• If you have no blog, then please leave a comment on this post with a description of what you did.  The more ideas we get, the better!

The Unplugged Project is very flexible.  The point is to be creative and have fun!

(I will have the buttons available later in the week.)

Gorgeous nautilus shell photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

THE LINKY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL WHO JOINED IN!

I have been a bit burned out on the Weekly Unplugged Project lately.  We just don’t seem to get to it every week and it has become more of a Blog Burden for me, then a Blog Benefit.  Plus, public participation seems to be waning along with mine.  Sigh…  Time for a change.

I have heard from a few people who are still interested.  I am still interested too, but now that my children are older I can no longer get to it every week and it MUST NOT become a chore. The point is for it to be fun.   So, I have a new plan.

How about a Monthly Unplugged Project?  I will announce a theme on the first day of the month, and close the Linky on the last day of the month.  That will give everyone (including me) a month instead of a week to come up with a project, do it, write about it,  and link to our posts (and/or leave our project in a comment).  Those with more time and enthusiasm could do as many projects as they want for each theme.

Over the years I have also been contemplating creating “Unplugged Project Buttons” that people could download and which would link to the project.  Button display would be entirely optional of course, but I have had some requests from people over the life of the project, so I guess interest is out there.

After about two years, I am finally getting to the buttons, and have even created a few!  Once I figure out some of the technical issues, I’ll put them out for any interested readers to take.

How does it all sound?

Today we sit stranded at home after a week of snow days and over four feet of snow!  The hungry birds hop busily about the bird feeders trying to fuel up before a cold night’s sleep.  It seems a good day to write that post about edible ornaments for the wild birds.

As I mentioned not long ago, every Christmas Eve the kids and I sit down and make edible tree decorations to hang on our trees outside as gifts to our wild birds.  We call it our Bird Christmas, but you could have fun making these at any time of year.  The squirrels often make off with many of our treats, but I don’t mind!

(By the way, although wire and dental floss are easy, if I can, I like to use natural cotton yarn or string for hanging since this is recycled by birds in the spring for cozy nests!)

Classic Pinecone Feeders: Send the children out to collect pinecones.  The bigger and more open, the better.  Mix peanut butter and bird seed together in a bowl.  Tie string or yarn around the pinecones to use for hanging (I find that it is a bit less messy to do this step before covering the pinecones in peanut butter).   Roll the pinecones in the mixture using a spoon to push it down between the scales if necessary.

VARIATION:

• No pinecones where you live?  Then use bagels!  Spread with peanut butter, sprinkle on birdseed, and the hole makes them really easy to hang.

Orange Cup Feeders: An adult should prepare the cups. Cut oranges in half and scoop out the insides to set aside for a healthy snack or a fruit salad (a grapefruit knife makes this job easy).  Use a metal skewer, knitting needle, or large darning needle to poke three approximately equidistant holes around the edge of the orange cup, near the top.  Thread string or yarn through the holes forming a hanger made of three strings.  Now for the kid part: Fill the cups with a peanut butter/birdseed mixture.

VARIATIONS:

• Fill with softened suet and birdseed, although peanut butter is more kid-friendly.  Suet is a great alternative for kids with peanut allergies though.

• If you have orioles in your area, fill the cups with grape jelly.  Orioles like jelly and they are attracted to the color orange!

• Easiest option – Don’t hollow out the oranges and just hang orange halves as is.  Orioles, robins, mockingbirds, tanagers, grosbeaks and cardinals like the fruit.

“Bird Tinsel”: Decorate shrubs and trees with strings of cranberries and popcorn (no salt or butter).  Thread the treats using a large needle and string, heavy duty thread, or dental floss.  Our popcorn didn’t string so well this year for some reason (perhaps our needle was not sharp enough) so we ended up just doing cranberries.  Use frozen or fresh berries.  I prefer frozen.  Frozen are less messy to string and thaw quickly once threaded.

VARIATIONS:

• Try dried fruits such as cherries, craisins, blueberries, papaya, apples or apricots.  How about peanuts in the shell?
• String fresh orange slices.
• Try other fresh berries such as strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, or rasberries.
• Raisins come in many colors and sizes.  Experiment with different varieties to make pretty patterns.

FUN TIP:  When threading a variety of foods, have your children create repeating patterns.  The garlands will be pretty to look at and your children will exercise their art and reasoning skills!

Bird “Cookie” Ornaments: You can use cookie cutters to make shaped ornaments for your wild birds.  The easiest variety are made with stale bread (although fresh is fine too, but might be harder to cut).  Use a cookie cutter to cut shapes out of the bread.  Poke a hole near the top using a skewer or straw. String yarn, string, dental floss or wire through to make a hanger.  I have even hung these using a wire Christmas ornament hanger poked directly through the bread.  Very easy.

VARIATIONS:

• If you want to get fancy, you can decorate your “cookies” with peanut butter and sprinkle on birdseed designs.  The seed will stick to the peanut butter and you’ll have instant “fancy” ornaments that the birds will love!

• For those with peanut allergies, or for a change, brush the bread shapes with egg white.  Sprinkle with bird seeds and bake on a baking sheet at 300 degrees for about 5 minutes (this will cause the seeds to stick to the bread).

• Melt suet, mix with birdseed and pour into greased, shaped molds (or lined muffin tins).  Put in freezer to harden, or outside if it is very cold.  Use a skewer to poke a hole through when they are getting solid but not yet truly hard.  Remove from molds when frozen and hang outside.  (NOTE:  You can use commercially available rendered suet, get some from the butcher, or make your own suet mix from a recipe in the links below.  Be careful of vegetable based fats, they are not supposed to be as healthy for birds.  Also, ordinary animal fats can spoil and melt easily if the temperature is not cold enough.  Think – greasy mess on your deck and birds with indigestion.  More on all these issues here:  The Great Crisco Debate).

• Try wiping your bread ornament in bacon grease.  I once read somewhere that Blue Jays and squirrels love this.  Perhaps a good way of recycling sink-clogging bacon grease?  The bread plus bacon grease would probably work a lot better in summer than straight bacon grease which melts very easily.  Also, since bacon grease is salty, it is advisable only in moderation and when a fresh supply of water is available nearby.  I have a heated bird bath that is hugely popular with my birds in winter, since it provides fresh water when all other sources are frozen.

Bird Goody Bags: Save your nylon mesh produce bags (the kind fruit, tomatoes, or onions come in).  Stuff them with suet, seeds and dried fruit.  You could even put in shelled peanuts or other nuts, unsalted is best.  Make sure they can fit through the holes – crush them if necessary.  Hang outside.  You can decorate these with fancy bows if you want them to look festive.

VARIATION:

• Make a Spring Bird Goody Bag and stuff it with nesting material.

USEFUL LINKS:

• Try these fun bird recipes!
• More suet recipes
• The Great Crisco Debate

But if you did a writing Unplugged Project this week, then please link to your project post in the linky below. If you didn’t join in with a writing project, then please do not link, but read more about how to join us here.

Due to seemingly waning interest and the holidays, I think we’ll have a bit of an Unplugged Project vacation.  Enjoy and stay creative!

In honor of the American Thanksgiving holiday, the theme for this week’s Unplugged Project is Thanks. We will be doing our Thanks project on Wednesday afternoon (a half day at school). We’ve been too busy with school and other things to get to it yet.

If you did a Thanks Unplugged Project this week, then…well…thanks!  And please add a link to your project post (not just your blog) in the Linky below.  If you didn’t do a Thanks project then please do not link, but read more about how to join in here.  We’d love to have you take part!

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

Writing

Have fun and Happy Thanksgiving!