Summer Fun Day 3 - Sugar Cookie Sudoku

It's been quite a while since we've had a sugar cookie snacktivity.  So, when the children interrupted me, seconds after I'd sat down to work the Sudoku puzzle from the penny ads, to ask if I couldn't possibly be persuaded to mix up a batch of cookies for them, I thought - why not?  Actually, first I thought - why don't you make your own cookies? Then, I remembered the freshly cleaned kitchen, and thought better of it.  

Really, there was no reason we couldn't all have our way.  The children could have cookies, and I could include them in some puzzling fun.

So, I mixed up a batch chocolate sugar cookie dough (click here for the recipe), rolled it out about 1/4'' thick, and used a paper template to cut 4''x4'' squares...

...scoring the unbaked cookies into quarters...

...and then twelfths, with a butter knife...

...before pressing the candy pieces into the squares, following the pattern of a few simple Sudoku puzzles from Essential Kids, substituting one color of candy for each of the four numbers used in their puzzles.

 After the cookies were baked and cooled, I marked the division of the fourths with frosting, and placed sufficient candy pieces with each cookie...

 ...for the children to use to solve the puzzles, explaining to them that there should be one of each of the four colored candies in each horizontal and vertical row, as well as in each of the four larger squares.

Then once they solved the puzzles, I gave them frosting to pipe on to hold their candies in place, saving their solutions for posterity...

...or at least until after dinner.

It's great to be a homeschooler.