Going Batty (for cookies)

As summer draws to a close, we've already touched on owls, and spiders, so it seemed only natural to move on to bats.

First off, my youngest two, helped me put together a batch of bat cookies. Again, we turned to the sugar cookie dough from Deborah Pearson's Alphabake Cookbook (which I'm not being payed to promote, but do recommend), with 4 tablespoons of bakers cocoa added. One of my friends asked me recently, if my kids get tired of all the cookies. Well...nooooa! Does anyone actually, ever get tired of cookies?

Anyway, I rolled the dough out, and the girls took turns cutting out circles, for the bodies...

...and flower shapes...

...which they cut in half, for the wings. Cutting a flower shape exactly in half, is quite a challenging task for a four year old - so some of our bat wings were a bit lopsided. C, was very determined to do it herself, though.

Finally, we added half marshmallow, and chocolate chip eyes (just like on our spiders), before baking.

The eyes could be added after baking, to keep them from melting so much, but I wanted to keep little hands away from hot cookies, and pans, so we added ours first. And, we ended up kind of liking the crazy bat eyes, the melting provided.

We ate our bat cookies while watching The Magic School Bus Going Batty, here, on Gamequarium.

Then, I sent the older children on another pilgrimage to the library for bat themed books. They returned with some real beauties, that ought to be enough to keep us occupied for the long weekend, while the library is closed. I hope to post about all of them later today, or tomorrow, for the What My Child is Reading link-up, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Apple Spiders

After our spider web fun, I made the kids these Flickr inspired , apple snacks.


For the webs, I used drizzled lines of butterscotch ice cream topping. Though of course, caramel would work, too.


The spider bodies are quartered apples, with the core removed.






The legs are another quarter apple, for each spider, cut into four slices, then in half again.

And, the eyes, are half a marshmallow each, just kind of stuck onto the top of the apple, topped with chocolate chips.

Raisins would be healthier, but who am I kidding?

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Transparent Tape Spider Web

We woke up, yesterday, to fog. It completely blocked out our mountain view. But, it did bring some closer beauties into focus, like the spider web on our back deck.

And, in the time it took us to watch The Magic School Bus Spins a Web (here, on Gamequarium), the fog had lifted, revealing a gloriously, sunny day. It was wonderful after the gloomy rain we've been having, and perfect for showing the children how invisible spider webs can be. This is the same web, in the sun...

The younger children nearly walked right into it, before they spotted it, and they knew where it was!

And, no one wanted that, since it would have meant tangling with the architect.

I know there are bigger, and deadlier spiders than this dime sized, barn spider, but really - it's orange, hairy, and has horns! So, we retreated to the safety of the house, and built a spiderless web, out of transparent tape.

I built the higher parts, but the younger children helped me with the lower edges discovering, that spider web building is harder than it looks.

Then, following a suggestion from Janice Vancleave's Play And Find Out About Bugs, I gave them a bag of cotton ball "flies" to toss at their creation. I really thought most of the bugs would sail right through the large holes we left, but a surprising number of them were caught in our trap.

And, kudos to Janice Vancleave. There is a reason so many of her books made it onto our favorites list. The kids (ages 4-7) were wildly crazy about this activity.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Crayon "Painted" Rocks

We've had a couple of rainy days, and my youngest, chafing over the loss of her outdoor playtime, has grown restless. I've been hearing a lot of - "what can I do now?" or, "can I do a craft?"

Unfortunately, the damp cold outside, makes everything inside feel closed in, and gritty, and the last thing I have wanted to do is pull out a bunch of paints, or scatter snipped up pieces of paper all over the floor. So finally, in desperation, I pulled out an idea for no-mess rock painting, that I had saved from some craft book, or other (unfortunately, I didn't save the name of the book, with the idea).

I stepped out to the yard, and picked a couple smooth rocks. I think I've mentioned before, that one of the benefits of living in the Rockies, is an abundance of rocks for craft projects.

I scrubbed them off, dried them with a towel, and drew some simple outlines on them.

Then, I gave one to C, with a couple of fresh crayons, and let her go to work.

When she had her rock colored completely, in a thick layer of crayon...

...I placed it on a tinfoil covered cookie sheet, and popped it in the oven, for a couple of minutes, at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, to melt, and blend the wax.

She really enjoyed watching this step.

I think the book had a polishing step, too. But, we just let ours cool, and called it good.

The melted crayon takes about a half hour, or more, to cool on the rocks. It's plenty of time to fit in a rainy day story, like Margaret Park Bridges' Now What Can I Do?, which offers its own suggestions for how to stay entertained on those "inside" days....

"...we can start by making your bed."

"Oh, Mommy - that's not fun."

"But it can be...if your bed is a boat!"

I think you can probably see where this is going. Sometimes, being busy, is the best boredom buster out there. And, as long as your being busy, you might as well get the chores done, too.

You can find more story stretching arts, and crafts at this week's stART (story + ART) link-up, at A Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Don't Miss Out On The Tea Party

I wanted to let you know that Miss Muffin over at Muffins and More (gotta love a blog name like that!), is hosting a tea party round-up.



All month long, she'll be featuring tea related posts, and projects from all over the blogoshpere. Including, I believe, the teapot pinata from right here. How sweet is that?

Be sure to click on over, and check it out.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cookie Geology

Last night, I made an ordinary, but delicious, batch of chocolate chip cookies, for a snack, and six, not so ordinary, mystery cookies, for science.

Today, I gave the children each one of the special cookies, to sketch out, and investigate.

The first thing they noticed, was some of their cookies looked different from the ordinary chocolate chip cookies, with bits of things other than chocolate, sticking out. But, some looked pretty normal, with only chocolate chips showing.

So, we weighed all the cookies, and one of the regular chocolate chip cookies, from our snack, and discovered the science cookies all weighed about the same as each other, and all more than a regular, chocolate chip cookie, of about the same size.

The children concluded, that all their cookies had extra ingredients, since they all weighed more, than the regular, chocolate chip cookies.

Then, they tried to decide what the extra ingredients were, by looking at the cookies. First off, they could see chocolate chips, and raisins. They could tell those, by their color, and texture. But, there were also white things, that they weren't so sure of.

Some of them thought they were marshmallows, and some thought they were macadamia nuts.

So, they pulled out the tools (tooth picks), for a closer examination...

They were marshmallows. They also removed a few raisins, and chocolate chips, intact, noting the effects of heat from baking, was greater on the chocolate, and marshmallow, than on the raisins.

And, just when they thought they had the ingredients all figured out, they were surprised, when they divided the cookies, and found coconut centers.


Finally, since our specimens were made of cookie dough, and not rock, they gave them the old, tried and true, taste test. Something, I assured them, they would not want to do "in the field".

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Signs of Fall (or maybe winter!)

I have another fun (at least, I think it's fun) science project, planned for later today, but this morning, everything is on hold, while I do a quick inventory of winter coats, hats, mittens, and the like. This is the view we woke up to today...

And, just in case you can't tell, those arrows are pointing at freshly fallen snow. It's only a little, and it's a long way from the valley floor, where we live, but even so - it's snow!

I was hoping for a few more days of summer, which we may yet get, but I think it's definitely time to get our boots in a row, so to speak. Still, it's a much better view from our driveway, than what we had earlier in the week.

Nothing puts out a forest fire like rain, and early snow.

It's great to be a homeschooler.