We Made it! - Yarn Jack-O-Lantern Windsock

This weeks Unplugged Project theme was: "J"

We choose to have our "J" stand for jack-0-lantern--just perfect for the autumn season.

First, I kept the little kids busy gluing together these cute jack-o-lanterns which I printed and cut out for them.

I wish I had the exact link for these, but I didn't save the link and when I tried to search for it, I came up with many, many different printables.

Don't worry, Kimmy's jack-o-lantern isn't scared, she says that it is a mustashe on the pumpkin's face!
I asked Luke to look like his jack-o-lantern and this is the face he showed me!
Our "big" jack-o-lantern project was a yarn, windsock type jack-o-lantern.
You need:
orange yarn
scissors
a syrofoam ball --ours was 6 inches--I wish is had been quite a bit smaller than this
black fun foam (or black felt)
Cut about 100 pieces of yarn 42 inches long.
If kids are doing this, there will be a knot problem!
Gather them up neatly and fold these in half, placing the syrofoam ball in this midway point of yarn.

Try to spread the yarn all around the "head"--this was tricky--use another piece of orange yarn to tie the yarn together tightly at the base of the ball---this is the "neck"

Make facial features out of black fun foam or black felt. Mark really wanted a scary jack-o-lantern, that is the reason for the downturned mouth--I wish he was smiling!

Use a big yarn needle to thread a piece of yarn through the top gathers of yarn. Tie together to make a big loop for hanging.

Hang up and enjoy!!

I plan on making a bunch of small jack-o-lantern windsocks to decorate outside the house this October.

Stop over at the Unplugged Project site to see everyone's great activities.

Next week's Unplugged Project is: WEATHER

Check out all the We Made It Friday Showcase at Ramblings of a Crazy woman.

A Homemade Rainstick: We Made It!!

This weeks Unplugged project was sound , and in honor of this theme we made a giant rainstick.

We started with a big mailing tube, a hammer and nails.
Being a little man, Mark had the honor of nailing the nails into the tube.
We used 6 nails and hammered them in at 90 degree angles to each other down the tube.
We realized after the fact that we could have used twice as many nails and had a good sound from our rainstick.
Gracie then painted the tube brown.

She used acrylic craft paint.

For decorations, Kim and Luke stuck these re-enforcement stickers onto the tube.

This was a real cute activity for them be a part of making the rainstick.

It is also great for those fine motor skills little ones need to practice.

Luke was especially excited about this design.

I let them fill up the tube with stickers and then got beans and rice ready to add to the tube.

We added about 2 cups of rice and 2 cups of lime beans-this tube is big!

I also used some purple duct tape to secure the lids onto each end of the tube.

I also used some duct tape to add a little more decoration to the tube.

To keep the stickers in place and to keep the paint from flaking off, I put clear contact paper onto the tube.

It sounds just like rain as you tip it from one side to the other.

You can listen to the fun here. You will also get to hear Kimmy singing along with the rainstick.

Check out all the Unplugged project here.

Next week's Unplugged Project is feather

A Jell-o Ocean---An Unplugged Project

We made fun "ocean Jell-O" for this week's ocean themed Unplugged Project.

All we needed was:

berry blue Jell-o

gummy fish--We used Nemo fruit snacks

clear cups

Grace and Kim waiting for the water to boil for the jell-o.
Mix jell-o with 3/4 cup of boiling water.
Great job, Luke!

Measure 1/2 cup of cold water and then add ice until it measures 1 1/4 cups of liquid and ice.

Stir until it starts to thicken and remove any remaining ice. We thought we would be able to add our "fish" at this point, but the gummies were too heavy and sunk.

We refrigerated the jell-o of 30 minutes and then it was perfect for the gummies.

After 30 minutes in the fridge, they were ready to become the ocean.

They looked real cool!

Mark doesn't eat gummies, so he added a plastic squid to his "cup of ocean".

This was a fun look.

We put them back in the fridge for an hour.

This was our after lunch dessert---yummy, yummy, plus a lot of fun.

The kids now want to make a big blue bowl of jell-o and make a great big ocean for the rest of the family to enjoy.

Make sure to check out everyone's Unplugged Projects this week.

Next week---SOUND

Tessellations: Geometric Art

A tessellations is created when a shape is repeated over and over again, covering a plane without any gaps or overlays.

I didn't know this until I discovered this term while researching this week's Unplugged Project: Geometric.

This art form is also explored in our new favorite art book: The Usborne Complete of Book of Art Ideas.
This is by far, the best book of art for kids that I have ever used.

To find out more about tessellations, check out this wonderful website, Coolmath4kids.

I found printables to use for coloring at this website also.

We discussed patterns and geometric shapes that fit together.
We also had a lesson on the colorwheel and complimentary colors.

Luke worked on his geometric patterns, but this is as far as he got. After coloring these two hexagons he moved on to the pattern blocks, which are another type of tessellation.

Kimmy stuck to her coloring for quite awhile, I was very proud of her.

We have this real neat Puzzellations set from Barnes and Noble.

We had a whole set of tessellations and didn't even know it--until yesterday!!

Our finished pictures.

We learned that using complementary colors in our geometric pictures make the picture "POP".

Amy and Laura then moved on to other geometric art from our new favorite book.

Gracie worked a long time to complete her artwork!!

Laura made a pattern from directions in our book.

Using this pattern, she was able make a beautiful geometric picture.

The effects of this technique are amazing.

I need to get a frame for this!!

Puzzles are also tessellations.

Grace is getting a little help from big brother Pat with this puzzle.

Amy made a "tessellation transformation"

This is from our new art book.

SO COOL!!

Check out others geometric Unplugged Project here.

Next weeks Unplugged Project is OCEAN