Last night I woke my two oldest children up at 2:30AM.  I led my confused and sleepy babies out onto the golf course behind our house armed with a flashlight and a blanket.  I spread out the blanket on the cool, damp grass of the fairway, we all laid on it facing northeast … and hoped that the sprinklers would not go off! Lol!

The children were astonished by what they saw – shooting stars, lots of them!  We also saw the Milky Way and several satellites marching in line across the night sky.

Our fabulous unplugged (and free!) show was the annual Perseid Meteor Shower.  The peak was the nights of August 12 and 13th, but you might still be able to see a pretty good display through the 22nd (especially if you are lucky enough to live in a low ambient light area like we do).  Just look to the northeast after midnight.

PS.  Most visible in the Northern Hemisphere, sorry!

LINKS:

EarthSky’s Meteor Shower Guide

Excellent Perseid Meteor Shower Expected

How-To: Photographing the Perseid Meteor Shower

Perseid Photo Gallery

For another of our astronomy adventures, you might like to read: The Moon Unplugged? Not For Me!! (Part 1) and Mom Unplugged vs. Evil Sleepy Poser Mom – Lunar Dilemma Part 2.

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(PHOTO:  I wish I had taken this great Perseid photo, but it is the work of Mila Zinkova.  License information can be found here.)

Smile Train – http://www.smiletrain.org

Again, I am LATE!  The problem with trying to be unplugged is, well, you are often unplugged.  I guess that is a good thing.

The theme for this month’s Unplugged Project is the very open-ended concept of:

Pretty

Have fun and be creative!  If you have never joined us before, please consider it.  You can read more about how it works here.

TURN YOUR DINNER INTO ART!

As is my pattern these days, I am a day or two late in posting our project for July’s Unplugged Project theme of beach.  Oh well!

I am such a packrat that I have had these clam shells sitting around all summer.  In fact, I am embarrassed to admit that I saved them from a fabulous meal in Upstate New York back in June and brought them all the way home with me!  (I just don’t really trust Arizona seafood.) We soaked them in hot soapy water right away after eating to clean off any grease and smell.

We used a dremel tool to drill a small hole in each one.  You’ll need a good masonry drill or dremel bit for this since, as we discovered, clam shells are quite hard.

Before we began painting, we soaked them again, this time overnight in pure bleach just to get rid of the last lingering slightly clammy smell. We then rinsed them off in cold water and let them dry.

Next we painted the outside of them bright colors. (I think it would also have been a pretty project with them left as-is, but my daughter wanted them to be colorful since this was to hang in her room.)

After the paint dried, we decided to splatter them with gold paint using old toothbrushes.  Fun but a bit messy!

We left the inside natural, but you could paint that too if you want.

After they had dried completely (overnight), we strung a piece of fishing line through each one.  My daughter brought in four sticks from the yard to make the frames for hanging them.

We tied each pair of sticks together in the form of a cross using yarn and then hung one shell off each arm of one of the crosses.  We suspended the second cross below the first using yarn to create a second tier.  We again tied one shell onto each arm and hung our final one much lower from the center.

Voilà!

We are having a busy summer of travel, playing outside with friends, refurbishing and cleaning my precious old doll house (that is finally out of my Dad’s New York attic and home with us in Arizona!), sprinklers, popsicles, etc.  How about you?

I have been blogging even less than usual and have even thought about taking a little official summer break of my own, but I guess I’ll just keep up minimally, as best I can when activities allow.  So, I am late again with this month’s Unplugged Project theme, but here it is:

Beach

This seems appropriate for those of us enjoying summer here in the northern hemisphere, as well as for residents of the southern hemisphere who might appreciate a little virtual escape from winter’s chill right about now (am I correct?).

You can blog (or leave a comment) about anything remotely related to the theme beach.  Perhaps something as simple as a trip to the beach, or perhaps a project you made with sand (like the permanent sand castles we made long ago for the Unplugged Project theme hard, or sand pictures that we made for the theme sand, or your own inspiration), or something sun or water-related?  Pretty much anything goes.

If you are unfamiliar with how the Monthly Unplugged Project works, then please read more here and consider joining in, even if only via a comment.  Just unplug, have fun, and tell us what you did!

(You’ll have to plug back in again for that last bit, but you can be quick, right?)

We are very late for last month’s Unplugged Project theme of bread, but since it is my blog, I am just going to slip it in anyhow!

Inspired by my recent emotional reunion with my beloved childhood dollhouse after about 30 years, I thought the kids and I could make some miniature food out of a glue-bread mixture that is commonly used by miniature designers (and me, many years ago).

First take a slice of white bread and tear it up into smallish pieces.  My 4 year-old was a great help with this step.

Pour some white glue on to your bread crumbs and mix it together with your hands (VERY MESSY PROCESS!). Don’t overdo the glue at first, you can always add more if you need to but it’ll probably end up being nearly as much glue as bread crumbs.

Squeeze it and knead it until you have a smooth ball of “dough.”  You’ll know you have the right consistency when it is smooth, looses its stickiness, and feels like real bread dough.

Next, decide what you are going to make and whether you want to pre-color your dough.  If so, you can divide it up and mix in some food coloring or paint to achieve the desired color.  We mixed in paint.  Here we are making green dough for lettuce:

Adding red paint to make cherries for a pie:

Mold your food.  A bottle cap makes a nice little pie dish or plate.  A toothpick is an excellent tool for both shaping and painting.

Leave it out to dry and harden, about 24 hours.  Once hard, you can spray it with a clear acrylic to protect it and create a shiny finish.

Here is some of the food we made:

~Some of my favorites~

Spaghetti and meatballs (in a bottle cap):

Chocolate chip cookies:

Cake and bread:

Hot dogs (with ketchup and mustard):

Now the dollhouse residents won’t be hungry anymore!

PS.  This month’s Unplugged Project theme is sleep.  Why don’t you join us?  Read more about how it works here.

License Plate Scavenger Hunt

• Download and print a free, printable map of the US (or your country/region).
• Give one to each of your children and see how many license plates they can spot while on the road.
• They can color in the states as they spot them.
• For US mainlanders, a special prize for Alaska or Hawaii makes it even more fun.

The map format (vs. just a list) gives them a real sense of geography.  On a recent road trip,  I found my kids saying things like:  “The farthest state we have seen from where we are now is New York” or “Look!  We have all the states that border Arizona!”

TIPS – For extra learning, choose one with state capitals*. Younger children will just enjoy coloring the map.

* For a printable PDF file of a US map with state capitals (free for personal or classroom use), go to this site, scroll down, and click on the link “United States: Capitals.”

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Licensing and author information here.)

I have been busy with summer activities and have not been feeling tremendously bloggy lately, so please excuse my tardiness in announcing this month’s Unplugged Project theme.

This month’s theme is inspired by one of my favorite activities:

Sleep

If you have never joined our Monthly Unplugged Project, please read more about it here.

There are very few rules.  The main ones are that the linky below is only for people who have done a project that is somehow, in some way, arguably related to sleep.  Also, please link to your project post, not just your blog in general.  Finally, I’d really appreciate a mention and link to Unplug Your Kids in your project post.

Thanks and have fun!

Are you without any ideas for organized unplugged things to to do on a nice Spring day but you aren’t feeling ambitious enough for a full blown Children’s Garden?  Do you have an old fish tank, or large glass bowl?  See if your kids want to make a terrarium!

Very few children can resist the idea of their own tiny little garden.  Even I remember making one and being totally fascinated by the magic of such a small scale.  To me it was like a little doll house garden.  If you have a fairy-lover, call it a Fairy Garden.  A dragon-lover, why not make a Baby Dragon Garden!  Be creative.

Last Sunday when we had our first gorgeous spring day, I finally told my 9 year-old that she could have the old fish tank in our garage that had been gathering dust in our garage for at least 6 months.  She has had her eye on it for some time – but for me, snow and cold are not conducive to warm, green creativity.

We finally pulled it out and I told her she was on her own.

This is what she came up with all by herself (as long as you don’t count my driving her to the nursery to get her plants while I bought mine).

I LOVE the reuse of the little fairy house from our fairy garden of 2 years ago and the path of rocks that lead to it.  There is even a pond made out of a food storage container that my daughter wants to put tadpoles in.  She put some sea shells in the pond and broken terracotta pots as homes for the future frog residents.  Some of the ferns look like trees and there is a small sprig of English Ivy for which she plans to make her own twig trellis.

Very fun and easy!

- Teaches kids not only to be creative about their landscaping ideas, but responsibility in caring for their creation.

- If you don’t have a suitable glass container, try searching yard sales and thrift stores.