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By Mom Unplugged, September 20, 2009 8:55 am

Today is the 3rd Annual International Rock Flipping Day!

Bored? Need something to do because your TV is off? (Yes, today is also the first day of Turnoff Week!)

Then go out and flip a rock to study what is underneath. Record your results via photos, poetry, art, diorama, cupcake replica, in other words, anything at all! Post on your blog. Or, add your photos to the International Rock Flipping Day Flickr Group. Read more about it here.

It is a gorgeous fall day here, perfect for rock flipping. We’ll head out later and I’ll post the results here on Unplug Your Kids.

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By Mom Unplugged, September 8, 2009 1:18 pm

As I am sure you all know, September 20th, 2009 is the 3rd Annual International Rock Flipping Day.

Oh, you didn’t know that? Well, on September 20th take your kids outside, choose a rock to flip, then:

1) Record what you find. “Any and all forms of documentation are welcome: still photos, video, sketches, prose, or poetry.”

2) Replace the rock as you found it; it’s someone’s home. But if there are critters underneath, move them to the side before you replace the rock and let them scurry back. You don’t want to squash anyone.

3) Post on your blog, or load your photos to the International Rock Flipping Day Flickr group.

4) Send a link to Susannah at Wanderin’ Weeta. Her e-mail address is in her profile.

5) Susannah will collect the links, e-mail participants the list, and post it for any and all to copy to their own blogs.

6) She also says: “Maybe we can Tweet it, too, this year. Use the hashtag #rockflip.” (NOTE FROM ME: This information is totally beyond my comprehension, but if you understand Tweeting, then give it a go that way and I will be impressed.)

(All instructions are from Wanderin’ Weeta’s blog - edited slightly by me)

I love this idea because it reminds me of something I did in very early elementary school (Kindergarten? 1st Grade?). We went out and measured a one foot by one foot square of dirt behind the school, and then we had to look closely and draw what we saw in that square. Obviously it made an impression since I remember that lesson VERY many years later!

So go ahead, take the badge, the link, and the instructions, and pass it on.

It’ll be fun and interesting, so please join in! We’ll be there! (…and September 20th is even my sister’s birthday…)

NOTE: More on the history of Rock Flipping Day at Wanderin’ Weeta’s.

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By Mom Unplugged, June 24, 2009 10:12 pm

(WARNING: If you don’t like worms, then skip this post!)

It was a very thrilling day today - our 2 lb. bag of Red Wigglers finally arrived!!

The Fedex driver had probably never had a more excited welcome than he got this afternoon. As my 8 year-old daughter put it: “Now we have millions and millions of pets!!!” Hmmm….not exactly what we need with 9 cats, a dog, 2 birds, 2 fish and a bunch of happily reproducing sea monkeys.

Here is the box of our very well traveled worms. Did Fedex know what they had in here?

The worms arrived nicely packed in a brown paper bag.

We opened the bag…

… and this is what we saw:

After holding a few worm friends:

And discovering an egg:

We gently tipped them into our “Worm Hotel” and tossed some of the damp newspaper on top of them.

Next came food. We were certain that they were hungry after their very long trip, the sort of trip that most worms never have to make.

The menu consisted of a medley of carrot peels, followed by leftover bok choi greens and brown rice, with some tea leaves for dessert:

We hope that our new pets will be very happy and produce a great deal of lovely, rich poop castings to transform our nasty clay soil into gorgeous, moist, nutrient-filled humus.

NOTE: To see how we made our worm bin, please visit our “Slippery” Unplugged Project post.

UPDATE: Harvesting the worm bin (it took only 8 weeks to make a gallon of lovely compost).

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By Mom Unplugged, September 7, 2008 6:34 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was soft.

I guess we could also have done this one last week for insect, but this week for our soft Unplugged Project, we made moth and butterfly feeders out of soft cotton balls and soft sponges.

I was inspired by our second visit this past summer to the Strong Museum of Play’s Butterfly Garden (in Rochester, NY). By the way, if anyone lives near Rochester, NY, or is visiting the area, that museum is well worth a visit, and don’t miss the butterflies! (For photos, please see my post from our first visit in 2007).

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Let’s start with the moths. I found the instructions here: How Stuff Works: Moth Feeder.

You need cotton balls, string, apple juice and sugar:

Measure 1/2 cup apple juice and pour it into a bowl:

Stir 1 tablespoon sugar into the apple juice until dissolved:

Next, soak the cotton balls in the mixture until saturated, then squeeze out to reduce drips. My two year-old really enjoyed this step. All the children were licking their fingers when done!

Tie the sugary cotton balls onto a string. We tied several on each string.

Hang the strings near outside lights or in front of a window where a light will be on inside, anywhere that might attract moths at night.

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For the butterfly feeder we used the leftover apple juice-sugar mixture from the moth project. We also needed a kitchen sponge, and a plate or dish - preferably red since butterflies are supposed to be attracted to the color red.

The formula for attracting butterflies (or certain moths) seems to be quite varied. Apparently sugar water works fine, but there are all kinds of other ingredients that can enhance the attraction. I even read that human urine has been used successfully to attract them! Generally though, they apparently like fermented bananas or other fruit, sugar water, brown sugar and rum!

We decided to get fancier than plain old sugar water, but we gave the urine idea a miss!

We didn’t have rotten banana on hand, but we did have some over ripe nectarines that I left out in the sun all day to hopefully ferment a bit:

We concocted our own formula of the leftover apple juice and sugar mixture, additional brown sugar, the nectarines, and even a bit of rum that I found in the pantry (although you could certainly leave that out, I think it probably just gives a more fermented odor to the blend).

Soak the sponge in the liquid mixture until saturated, then put it on the plate and add any rotten fruit:

Place the dish outside in a sunny spot. Try to pick someplace near flowers that butterflies enjoy, and put the plate a bit higher than the blooms if you can. We put ours on top of an empty birdbath in the middle of our rather neglected butterfly garden.

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So, how did we do??

Well, we had one moth customer as of bedtime last night:

We hung three feeders up and (not surprisingly really) he was at the one near the brightest light. Keep that in mind if you try this.

The butterflies were more elusive. We didn’t sit and watch all day, but none came while we were checking. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

(RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS IN COMMENTS: I expected the plate to attract lots of wasps, ants and other bugs, but not yet for some reason. I suspect that that might happen more readily in some “buggier” parts of the world. Once the ants do find it though, they’ll probably carry the whole thing off!)

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A few links:

Bird and Other Wildlife Feeders

How to: The Butterfly and Moth Cookbook (cooking FOR them, not cooking them…)

Why are Moths Attracted to Light?

Moth or Butterfly?

The Children’s Garden (an old Unplug Your Kids post about gardening with children, includes information on creating a butterfly garden)

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If you joined in the soft Unplugged Project this week, then please put a link to your post (preferably your actual post, rather than your blog) in Mr. Linky. If you didn’t join us but want to know more about how to join in, then please read more here.

Also, in case you missed it last week, I have decided to disable the Linkys after two weeks in order to prevent spam. You will always be able to follow all the existing links on the Mr. Linky, but there will be no new links added after two weeks.

Finally, the Mr. Linky is only for those who do that week’s project. I do check and when I find a link with no apparent project, I delete it. Sorry, but I really want the links to just be for projects so they are an easy resource for readers.

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

Sand

Have fun!

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By Mom Unplugged, June 22, 2008 10:48 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project is “old.” It was a hard choice for me since I thought of many fun options, but…

My now 6 year-old son has always been somewhat obsessed with maps. Since, at the moment, he really enjoys drawing “treasure maps,” I ultimately decided that he might enjoy making a treasure map that really looked old.

When I was a child, in art class once we antiqued cards by burning the edges with a candle, gluing them onto wood, and then coating them with shellac to make them look yellowed and ancient. For some reason I LOVED this project. In fact I loved it enough to remember it to this day, and trust me, it was quite a while ago!

Well, I didn’t have any shellac on hand, but I have heard that similar results can be obtained with coffee or tea. So, we gave it a go. I followed the basic instructions for How to Antique Paper from Curbly blogger, DIY Maven. We then embellished a bit. Here’s what we did:

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We needed brewed coffee or tea, instant coffee granules, a Sharpie (permanent marker), some plain white paper (I used computer printer paper), a baking sheet with a rim, some paper towels, and an oven:

First we drew our maps with the Sharpie. The kids loved this of course, and each made several:

Then we crumpled the maps and flattened them out again to create wrinkles:

Next came the really fun part. We laid the maps side by side on the rimmed baking sheets and poured coffee on them. You don’t need much, a cup probably would have sufficed. I don’t know what I was thinking when I made a whole 4 cup Pyrex jug full! Too bad instant coffee is too disgusting to drink or I could have a few cups while we worked.

We poured on a little (don’t flood it) and then smeared it around with a paint brush to completely cover the paper without drowning it too much:

The coffee is what stains the paper that yellow-brown tone. If you want “age spots” then sprinkle on some instant coffee granules and let them dissolve a bit:

Once the granules have dissolved a little, blot up all the excess liquid on the paper and the baking sheet with some paper towels. Tip - blotting with a dabbing motion seemed to work better than wiping:

Here they are before going into the oven. The oven dries them off quickly and gives them a slightly parched, brittle, old texture:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees (93 Celsius - “low heat”) and put the baking sheet in the oven. It took about 5 minutes or so for ours to dry out. Keep an eye on it. When the edges start to curl up a bit, it is probably done.

They will come out looking hundreds of years old! But, if that’s not enough for you, you can take it a step further and burn the edges too. Obviously, this is an activity for adults only.

Light a candle and place it in the kitchen sink. The dry paper burns very well, so you’ll want water right there. You can also just drop the paper into the sink if the flame spreads too quickly. I was a bit overly-enthusiastic on my first go and burned a few apparently crucial areas of one of my daughter’s maps (sorry!):

I eventually got the hang of it and was able to produce just a lightly ragged burned effect instead of giant, blackened blotches.

Tip - gently slide the edge of the paper back and forth through the flame. Keep it moving and try not to really let it actually catch on fire. After a few passes through the flame, take it out. The edge will be glowing. Put the edge under some running water to extinguish the glow. Afterwards you can let the paper dry on its own, or if you are impatient as we were, then simply pop it back into the oven for a few more minutes to dry off.

Our finished maps:

The final touch was rolling them up and tying them with string:

~THE HUNT FOR TREASURE~

While we were making the maps, my daughter asked if I would make a “real” treasure map for them, and then hide some treasure somewhere for them to find using the map.

I thought that sounded fun, so I did.

The map is revealed (they hadn’t looked at it while I was making it):

After a false start in the wrong location (perhaps Mom is a poor map draftsman?), they finally got their bearings and were hot on the trail of the pirate treasure:

And the treasure is finally found!

We had a great time on the treasure hunt and surprisingly, it actually taught some map-reading skills!

The treasure hunt is a fun activity to try anytime. It only takes a minute or two to draw a map and hide the “treasure.” You don’t have to get fancy and “antique” your map unless you want to.

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We had a lot of fun this week. This project was easy enough for them to do on their own (apart from the burning of course), and we all enjoyed it

What did you do for old? If you joined in this week’s Unplugged Project, please put a link to your project in Mr. Linky. Also leave a comment so your project link will be forever immortalized should Mr. Linky fail, as he does from time to time.

If you didn’t join us, please think about trying to next week. You can read all about how the Unplugged Project works here.

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In honor of summer (here in the Northern Hemisphere anyway), the theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Garden

Please note that I did not say “garden-ing” (although that would be a fine project to share). It could involve pictures of gardens, something to do with plants, seeds, bugs, colors, dirt, butterflies … anything! Be creative, I look forward to being inspired by you all!