BANANA PEEL TO WHITEN TEETH

Nature has it all! 

I have recently come across with the picture below and it made me think once again that it could be possible and it could be this easy. Has anyone tried it before or is anyone planning to give it a go? 

TIPS FOR CLEANING IRONS

Here are some suggestions for you to use if your iron has some melted fabric on it.

• Heat the iron at low setting just until material softens, rub using a paste made using baking soda and water. Wipe off with damp cloth.
• Salt on damp cloth, soapy water and a nylon scourer. 
• Vinegar and bicarb soda
• Oven cleaner and lots of gentle rubbing using a clean cloth

RECYCLED CRAFTS: An Egg Carton Turned Into A Skateboard

                               

Here in Melbourne, we have been having lots of cold days and the flu bugs are having a very successful season. We have had our share as well and it all started with Mr. Junior being unwell the other week. On the positive side, this sickness gave us a lot of opportunities to stay mostly at home and do something together. 

As a family, we try our best not to waste anything or waste as little as possible as you would know from many of my previous posts. We love the idea of using the unwanted rather than wasting and here is another example of what recycled craft Mr. Junior did with my help using an egg palate. Just as a dip-note, we made a skateboard (Mr. Junior is very much into scooters and skateboards this year), a bookmark, a turtle (or does it look more like a snail?) and a finger puppet using the same palate. We still have so much more egg carton left for more for later!

This tutorial is visual and the step-by-step instructions hidden in pictures explain it all. I will only list the materials and then leave you with the pictures!

Materials used:

• an egg carton
• a pair of scissors
• glue
• sticky tape
• 4 bottle caps
• some tissues (to be stuffed in bottle caps)
• a disposable wooden chopstick (to be broken into two)
• a piece of decorating paper for decorative purposes(we used an old colouring book's cover page) (optional)

Do something fun today!

HOMEMADE PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT

What a great homemade playground equipment design idea! I so want this for my backyard!

DID YOU KNOW ...? (34)

Snails have teeth.

UPCYCLED FRAME JEWELLERY HOLDER

      

Here is an idea to utilise your unwanted frame beautifully. The materials needed are a frame of your choice, some wood to fit in the frame, some spools, a power drill to put the spools in place, a piece of fabric to please your taste to cover the wood with, a stapler gun or a hot gun glue and some nails. 

This site here has all the instructions for this tutorial. 

Enjoy!

GUEST POST: 6 Ways to Stimulate - Not Stifle- Your Child's Curiosity

This entry comes from Tara Spenser who is currently the resident writer for http://www.workingcapital.org/, where she researches the most affordable working capital needs available. In her spare time, she enjoys blogging, swimming and being a mom. 

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Babies are born curious.  It’s miraculous and, unfortunately, fleeting for most.  

Sir Ken Robinson, in his video (http://www.wimp.com/educationparadigms) Changing Education Paradigms, talks about divergent thinking, which isn’t the same as creativity.  If creativity is “the process of having original ideas which have value,” then divergent thinking is “an essential capacity for creativity.  It’s the ability to see lots of possible answers to a question.”  In an example, Robinson says a creative person might come up with 15 uses for a paperclip, but a divergent thinker can come up with 200 by asking questions like, “Can the paperclip be 200 feet tall and made of foam rubber?” 

A study published in Breakpoint and Beyond tested 1,500 kindergarten children in divergent thinking.  A whopping 98% of them scored at genius levels!  The same children were tested five years later, and again five more years later, and each time, their scores dropped dramatically. 

There are steps you can take as a parent or teacher to encourage a lifelong thirst for ideas that will benefit the child and, one day, the world.

Lead by example and show curiosity.  Go outdoors and wonder aloud at the trees, the stars, the clouds, the smells coming from bakeries and restaurants, the patterns of roof tiles in houses you pass.  Your child will see that curiosity and wonder are traits you share and will feel encouraged to be curious, herself.

Follow your child’s lead by encouraging her natural interests.  If your child enjoys music, fill the car and the house with it and take her to free concerts and gigs.

Use open-ended questions.  “Yes” and “no” can get boring.  Instead of asking, “Did you have fun?” try instead, “What did you do that was fun today?” or “How do you feel about going to the park?”

Redirect curiosity when it’s not convenient for you.  If your child loves looking at bugs in the mud, change her out of her nice clothing and let her do it in secondhand gear.  If she loves the potted plants but has trouble keeping them upright, show her how to treat the leaves tenderly.  If she loves spilling drinks from the table, give her cups of water to overturn in the bathtub.  The point is to encourage curiosity without prohibiting curious behavior.

Ask “What do you think?” before answering questions.  This encourages your child to be an independent thinker rather than to depend solely on others for information.  This initiative will become increasingly important with age.  Asking what she thinks before answering can also help you to answer the question in an age-appropriate manner.

Be okay with not knowing the answer.  This can teach humility and the initiative to pursue answers from other sources, like the library, other people, or the Internet.  Just be sure to follow up on unanswered questions together.  Write them down with your child to encourage persistence. 

For more on curiosity in children, take a look at http://www.ted.com/conversations/1535/why_kids_lose_curiosity_in_the.html what TEDsters are saying.  TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is a global set of conferences aimed at disseminating “ideas worth spreading.”  (Check out TED Talks on Netflix or Hulu; they’re fascinating.)  One well-informed user in a thread about childhood curiosity brings up the recent research on adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus (which transfers short term into long term memory).  This system breaks down naturally with age, but some researchers believe that as an event seems less likely to occur (something learned with time), the brain has less incentive to be curious.