Tag Archives: washing machine

Total Hogwash

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total hogwashMessy muddy piggy problems? No worries. Just send the gang through the Hogwash! Our patented conveyor belt technology will carry your pigs through a soaking, soaping, scrubbing, rinsing, and drying. We clean everything but the oink!

We read Hogwash, written by Karma Wilson, and illustrated by Jim McMullan (Little, Brown, 2011). It’s spring cleaning on the farm! The industrious Farmer scrubs his way through the horses, ducks, cows, goats, cats, and dogs. But he hits a snag when he gets to the hogs. They don’t want a wash! He tries everything (sneaking, yelling, bribing, pretending to be a pizza delivery man) but nothing works. Finally, he loads his crop duster with water and shampoo and takes off. But plane crashes into the pig pen! Is the Farmer mad? Nope! He discovers that mud can actually be quite fun!

Because this project involves a conveyor belt, the measurements of the different pieces of really depend on the dimensions of your box. I’ll give a general supply list below, and provide the specific sizes we used in the photo instructions. Please adjust up or down for your box!

You’ll need:

  • 3 toilet paper tubes
  • Pink construction paper
  • Poster board
  • 3 small paper sample cups
  • Tissue paper
  • 1 large box (ours was 4.5” X 4.5” x 9” – a large tissue box works too!)
  • 1 paper towel tube
  • 4 bendy drinking straws
  • Blue cellophane
  • 4-6 strands of pink paper crinkle
  • 1 small piece of paper towel
  • 1 hogwash sign template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
  • 4 jumbo craft sticks
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

We’ll begin with the pigs and the conveyor belt, then proceed to the Hogwash! First, wrap a toilet paper tube with pink construction paper. Use extra snippets of paper to make pig ears, then draw the eyes and mouth with markers. You can also use markers to draw the nose (we used a cute little dot sticker). Repeat the above steps until you have 3 pigs.

hogwash pig participantThe conveyor belt is a long, narrow strip of poster board with 3 “seats” attached to it. First, hot glue 3 paper sample cups to the centers of 3 squares of poster board or tagboard (our squares were 2.5″ x 2.5″). Wrap each paper sample cup with a strip of tissue paper (our strips were 1.5″ x 16″). The tissue will keep the pig from popping off of the seat. Below are the 3 stages of seat construction – the sample cup, the tissue-wrapped cup, and the pig sitting on the seat.

conveyor belt seatsTape or hot glue each seat to a 1.25″ x 28″ strip of poster board. Note the placement of the seats on the strip. The first seat is placed 12.5″ from the front. Why? You need to be able to load the pigs on the seats, then pull them through the Hogwash smoothly without having to repeatedly reach inside the machine. The long strip allows you to do this (trust me, we tested it!). Here’s what the finished conveyor belt looks like:

full converyor beltSet the pigs and the conveyor belt aside for a moment, it’s time to make the Hogwash! Cut the top and short sides off a large box. Leave .75″ of space at the bottom of the box for the Hogwash’s ramp.

hogwash step 1Cut a paper towel tube in half, trim the halves to fit inside the box, then push the halves together and tape them in place. There should be no gap between them.

hogwash step 2Slide a strip of poster board or tagboard under the box (our box was 9″ long, so our strip was 2.5″ x 14″).

hogwash step 3Lay a matching strip over top of the tubes and tape the ends of the two strips together.  This creates the “ramp” for your Hogwash.

hogwash step 4Here’s a different angle, You can see the ramp a little more clearly:

hogwash alt angle rampNext, arch 3 short strips of poster board or tagboard over the box (our strips were .75″ x 11.5″). Tape them in place. Important! Make sure the arches are high enough for your pigs to easily pass under. Our arches, for example, were 3.25″ above the top of the box.

hogwash step 5Next are the 5 cleaning components of the Hogwash: Spray, Soap, Scrub, Rinse, and Dry. In the below image you can see them in order from right to left.

hogwash wash components

  1. Spray Cut .75″ off the shorter ends of 2 blue bendy straws, wrap ends with fringed pieces of blue cellophane, then tape the straws to the inside of the Hogwash.
  2. Soap Tape a few pieces of pink paper crinkle to the underside of the 1st arch.
  3. Scrub Fringe a small piece of paper towel (ours was 2.5″ x 3.75″), then tape it to the underside of the 2nd arch.
  4. Rinse Fringe 2 more pieces of blue cellophane (ours were 1″ x 4″) and tape them to the underside of the 3rd arch.
  5. Dry Cut .75″ off the shorter ends of 2 red bendy straws, then tape the straws to the inside of the Hogwash.

You might have to do a little trimming and adjusting of these components when you start sending your pigs through. For example, our paper towel scrubbers were a little too long at first. They kept snagging the pigs and pulling them off their seats. We also added a “glass” roof to our Hogwash. It’s an 8.5″ x 11″ overhead projector transparency sheet. Cute, but totally optional!

hogwash glass roofFinish by cutting, coloring, and attaching the different signs from the template. The biggest sign goes on the front of the Hogwash. The smaller signs get attached to jumbo craft sticks and taped to the back (our craft sticks were 8″ long).

total hogwashThread the conveyor belt through the wash, get your pigs seated, then pull the long end of the belt to send them through the Hogwash. Behold! Squeaky clean piggies!

The Dirt on LEGO

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the dirt on legosOver the years, people have learned to contact me before they discard things like surplus archive boxes, old folders, and giant tubes. I always find a way to work them into a story time project (even if it means cramming them in a storage closet for months, praying they don’t topple on me while I’m trying to wrestle a stubborn pack of sparkle stems from a bin).

But our most recent acquisition was a little was unusual. It wasn’t office supplies or packing material. It was a LEGO set. An ancient Civil War LEGO set unearthed from the History Department’s graduate study room.

box of legosThe set had collected a considerable amount of dust over the years, and as I pondered its fate, Katie said “You know, I saw some great LEGO cleaning tips on Pinterest. One woman even threw hers in a washing machine!” Really?

I know that many libraries, classrooms, children’s museums, and homes have LEGO and DUPLO sets in them, and that keeping them clean is a concern and a frustration. So we thought it would be helpful to test 3 different cleaning methods on 1 dirty LEGO set and report the results. Katie gamely volunteered. Here is the report, based on her excellent field notes.

TEST #1: WASHING MACHINE

washing machineFor this method, you’ll need a mesh laundry bag (also knows as a lingerie bag). First, Katie removed all the small bricks and tiny pieces (basically, anything that could fall through the holes of the mesh). Then she pulled the rest of the bricks apart, dropped them in the bag, and wrapped a rubber band around the top for extra security. After reading a number of comments and suggestions on the original Pinterest post, Katie decided to wash the bricks using the delicate cycle, in warm water, on low spin.

Katie’s washing machine is a front-loader. The LEGO set was loud. Super loud. 35 minutes of loud. I asked her if she thought a top-loader would have been quieter, and she said that some of the Pinterest commentators used top-loaders and…it was still super loud.

When the machine stopped, Katie discovered that a small handful of LEGOs had escaped the bag. Not so good. The low spin cycle did dry the bricks a little but they definitely needed air drying.

TEST #2: DISHWASHER

dishwasher Katie prepped another set of bricks and put them in a mesh laundry bag on the top rack of her dishwasher. After consulting her machine’s operating manual, she decided to use her “china” setting (warm water, no heat dry). She didn’t want the LEGOs to melt on a hot water/high heat cycle. The dishwasher was much, much quieter. However, the no heat dry meant that the LEGOs were super wet and needed considerable air drying time.

TEST #3: HAND WASH

sinkA final set of LEGOs were prepped and placed in a small mixing bowl with warm water and dish soap. IMPORTANT! When washing LEGOs in your sink, make sure you put in the drain plug in place. LEGOs in garbage disposal = bad news. Wash and rinse the LEGOs thoroughly, then drain.

drying legosToting piles of wet LEGOs, Katie headed outside with some towels and spread the pieces out on her back porch. But the humidity was so high, she had to bring them back inside and spread them out on her kitchen floor overnight, which worked great.

AND…THE RESULTS!

There weren’t any discernible difference between the 3 washing methods. Strangely, the white and yellow bricks still held on to a little dirt (and it’s not just because dirt shows up more on light colors, we examined all the bricks very closely). The blue bricks were the champions of cleanliness. Not a speck of dirt to be seen!

clean legosCleaning LEGOs in a washing machine is not recommended. It’s just too loud and some bricks escaped, which could potentially scratch the interior of your machine. The dishwasher is quiet, quick, and does the job. But if you use anything other than warm water, you risk warping or melting your LEGOs. So if you’re going for the full-out disinfecting, a good old fashioned hand wash is the way to go. Especially since you can use hotter water (and disinfect with vinegar or diluted bleach if you choose).

The sparkling clean LEGOs were immediately put to good use by Katie’s son, who spent a busy afternoon enthusiastically building an impressive football/castle/Civil War reenactment/futuristic battlefield.

legoscapeWant to see what we’ve done with some of our other recyclables? Check out this post!