Members of FamilyTimes.com have shared these great family activities. This is a great resource for families looking for ways to create new family memories.
Kids Suggestions
Kids are sure to appreciate these crafts submitted by other children.
If your child has a neat idea, ask them to write it down for you to post it in your journal. It's a good learning opportunity for them and they will feel good when they see their work published on the internet.
armpit tuba
An armpit tuba is a tuba you put under your arm and blow and it makes three diferant farting noises.
To make an armpit tuba you go to home depot or any other hardware store and buy a clear vinyl tube. You buy a tube that's 7/16" and about two feet long. and that's it.
to use it, wait until someone bends over and then you put one end under your armpit (towrds the front) and blow into the other end.
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
my orange carving
To make an orange carving you must get an orange from your refrigerator or you can go to a store and buy one.
To carve it you must have a special tool. The special tool is the Snacker and the brand is Sunkist. You can find it in the produce aisle in the grocery store.
You can carve triangles for the eyes and then for the nose you can make a square. For your mouth you could make a smiley face or you could make a vampire mouth with fangs coming down out of the bottom of the orange's mouth.
Searching For Crafts With Google
Looking for a fun craft or science project? This search box will restrict your Google search results to some of the best sites on the net for family projects.
Fun with primary colors
The following is an activity that is a cheap and safe way to have fun while exploring the effects of mixing primary colors.
Items required:
Shaving cream
Food coloring
Table with a nonporous surface or a sheet of plastic will also work
Child’s clothing should be expendable due to potential staining.
For each child you will need three small piles of shaving cream.
In each pile you will place one to two drops of food coloring, each pile is to be a different color.
You are now ready to show you’re child how when primary colors are combined they create different colors. Don’t be afraid to let them explore this can only result in the color brown.
Clean up requires tap water and a sponge. The younger children may need a bath, and their colorful fingers will eventually return to normal.
HowToons! - Beautifully-illustrated, fun stuff for kids to build.
HowToons is a really cool idea from some MIT students. Kids learn interesting concepts following beautifully illustrated instructions. HowToons will probably be syndicated in local papers soon, but don't wait.. print a few from their site now.
This is year 2 for our pine wood derby races. I wanted to have fun with Michael, get creative, and make sure he felt good with the finished product and learned a little while building it. Here's what I've learned so far:
Start with a plan - I've created a pinewood derby planning sheet to help Michael try out a bunch of different designs. He wasn't too fond of this extra step last year, but this year, he enjoyed it.
I talked to the father of the child who won the design trophy and he said they spent a fair amount of time thumbing through automotive magazines for ideas. Since we don't have any automotive magazines in the house, we'll probably do a couple of google image searches (Ie. car & hot rod) next year.
Tools & Techniques - If you are lucky enough to have a bandsaw, use it. Otherwise, a simple coping saw and a lot of elbow grease work well. You will want to carve out space for the weights in the bottom of the car. Start by drilling a few holes close together (be careful not to go through the car), then use a utility knife to scrape away the remaining wood.
Don't carve the space for the weights to close to the grooves for the axles, it wil chip away when installing the wheels.
Performance - If you want to win, your greatest ally is weight, and your worst enemy is friction. The following techniques are required if you want a competitive car.
Use a good scale and get as much weight as you can without exceeding the five ounce limit.
Bring small screws that you can add to the car during weigh in.
Check your alignment. Poor alignment will have the wheels rubbing against the side of the car and the track causing unnecessary friction.
Polish your axles.
Lubricate your wheels and axels well with graphite.
I wonder if singing karaoke with little children will help them learn how to read. It seems likely, and certainly won't do them any harm!
Teeth & Horns For Our Pumpkins
We decided to take our halloween pumpkins to a new level this year. We are attaching teeth and horns made from Sculpey brand polymer clay to our pumpkins this year.
Making horns and teeth out of clay is pretty simple stuff, the problem is attaching them to the pumpkin. We are trying a few different techniques.
I bought a few self drilling dry-wall anchors to support the horns. My thinking is that the deep grooves will continue to hold and support the horns as the pumpkin begins to soften.
Before baking the clay, I pressed the base of the horn into the philips head slot and over the head of the screw.
I then took an unused dry-wall anchor to pre-drill the holes in the pumpkin. This minimizes the chance of the horn seperating from the anchor when screwing it into the pumpking.
Next I screwed the baked horns into the pre-drilled holes. I used a needle nose pliers to turn the screw from beneath the horn.
I took a different approach for the teeth. The idea is to create a tab which can be screwed through and into the pumpkin. To do this, Michael and I rolled out the teeth with a little extra length. I then pressed the thickest end flat against the table, creating a thin tab. Using a pencil, I poked a hole in the tab large enough for the screw to pass through.
It would probably be a good idea to smeer vaseline over the screws before putting them in the pumpkin.
