Crafting a Peanuts Themed Thanksgiving Puzzle

In preparation for next week's festivities, I put together a quick 3x3 square puzzle for the "kids' table"...

...following the same instructions as for last year's Dr. Who themed, stocking stuffer puzzle, a simple grid in Paint...

...and a few appropriately clad characters from the image of a bulletin board set (again since this is just for personal use, I think that's okay).

Just as for the Dr. Who puzzle, once I had the images arranged on the grid, I printed the page, glued it to the blank side of an empty cereal box, and covered the backside with construction paper before encasing both sides in clear contact paper, and cutting the pieces apart into a puzzle that ought to keep the teens (and their younger sibs) occupied while the adults yammer away over plates of pumpkin pie.

Balancing Twigs - STEM au Naturel

We had a good wind blow through town earlier in the week, leaving our yard full of twigs and branches from our tree.  I gathered them up, setting aside a pile I thought might come in handy for a fall craft project or two.

Then, I happened to spot a demo version of Melissa and Doug's Suspend, set up in a local toy store.

It's on my Christmas list now, but in the meantime, I thought we could probably come pretty close to the same concept with our pile of twigs.  When we got home from the store, I drug C (age 9) out into the backyard, stuck one of the branchier twigs into the dirt...

...and challenged her to a game of "Balance the Twigs".

We each took turns choosing one twig at a time from the pile, and placing it into the branches of the larger twig, so that it would balance...

...not touching the ground, knocking any other twigs from the "tree", or causing the entire bunch to topple over.

It took quite a bit of concentration, and really stretched our sense of spacial awareness.  The twigs, unlike the manufactured game pieces, are oddly shaped and weighted, adding an element of difficulty.  Of course, with the store bought game, you probably don't have to watch out for spiders in the pile of playing pieces - so it's a give and take.

Amazing Paper Triangle Toy

A friend forwarded us a link to a YouTube video with instructions to make one of these fun paper toys.  It starts out looking like a row of triangles...

 ...but taken in hand, it can be twisted...

...and flipped...

...and turned into all kinds of different shapes and designs.

It looked like a nice distraction for a day New Years Day afternoon, when we were all too sleepy to do much else, so we decided to try our hand at making one.  The instructions in the video are simple, but go by quickly.

I made up a set of instructions of our own, so if we decide to make a second, or third triangular toy, we can go to it without all the rewinding, and pausing.

The video instructions also start off with a single sheet of paper, but we used eight different sheets of construction paper (covered later in contact paper) for a more colorful toy.

Monochrome or multicolored, you will need to cut eight strips of paper - 3cm wide, and 12 cm long.

Draw two lines on each strip to divide it into three sections - one 5 cm, one 4 cm, and one 3cm section, in that order.

If you want a more durable toy, you can cover each strip with clear contact paper, trimming it close to the paper edges, at this point.  Then, fold the two end sections of each strip up, and tape them together to form a triangle.

When you have all the strips folded, and taped into triangles, arrange them into two rows of four.

Turn the triangles in each row so that the 4cm long sections are down, and the 3 cm sections are facing each other.

Join the first two, and second two triangles, in each row together, with a piece of tape across their 5cm sides.

Then join then join the sets of two triangles together with a piece of tape between the two center triangles, in each row, across their 3cm sides (only tape the two center triangles).

Place the two rows with their 4cm sides together.

Tape them together at the ends with a piece of tape joining the two last triangles of each row, across the 3 cm sides, as shown below.

Pick the triangles up to discover where they bend freely, and where they do not. 

 Then, beginning flipping, and flopping, and folding them into whatever interesting shape you can.

Masking Tape Paper Doll Mansion

 The older girls were busy tonight, hosting a farewell slumber party for a friend who is moving next week, leaving their younger sisters (and brother) at loose ends.  To keep them occupied, and out of their big sisters' hair, I suggested they draw, and cut out a few paper dolls.

While they were busy with that, I pulled out some inexpensive, meaning not too sticky, rolls of masking tape (left over from our masking tape roads), and traced out the outline of a large house on our living room floor...

...for them to fill in themselves with rooms, and stairs, and furniture...

 ...for their homemade dolls.  D even jumped into the fun crafting his own paper doll (a tiny Minecraft creeper)...

...and adding a weight room to the mansion.  All in all, a very good evening's worth of play.

With a blizzard warning in effect this weekend (stinking lying little groundhog), I've downloaded an audio copy of The Borrowers from the library for tomorrow, in hopes of sparking some additional ideas for stretching out the fun.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Half Square Triangle Quilt Puzzle - Math Meets Art

Piecing together the isosceles triangles for our Valentine cookie with the children, I was surprised at how tricky it was to create the pattern, even with a picture of the design we were working toward right in front of us.

I really love geometric puzzles. Naturally, after the cookies were all eaten, I decided we needed to have to have a more permanent set of half square triangles to use for exploring the multitude of designs, that can be created with them.  So, it was back to cutting out and dividing squares, but this time out of card stock instead of cookie dough...

...or rather out of folding notebooks, which turned out to be a lot less expensive than colored card stock (cereal boxes would do in a pinch too, and might even turn out to be more quilt-like in the end).

Before I cut the squares apart, I used them to trace out the base of a cardboard frame (also a good use for an empty cereal box)...

...which I completed by gluing thin, "mitered" strips around the edges.

The frame isn't really necessary, as the triangles can be pieced together right on the table, but it helps the younger children visualize the 4 x 4 unit square.

All that was left then, once the triangles were all cut apart, and the glue on the frame was dry, was to print out, and "laminate" with contact paper,  a sheet of half square triangle, quilt block patterns from one of the many quilting websites out there (this one is really good) to get us started...

...puzzling out and coloring in the designs for ourselves.

It's a lot like working on a Tangram puzzle...

...but with a slightly more artistic flair that quilters, mathematicians, and puzzle fanatics alike are sure to enjoy.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cardboard Tubes and Circles - Homemade Building Sets

Trace around an empty cardboard tube, to cut circles out of thin cardboard (such as an empty cereal box).

Cut four, evenly spaced, slits into the top and bottom of the tube, about as long as the radius of the cardboard circles...

...so the circles will slip nicely into the slits.

Add more circles and tubes.

You might even want to cut some larger circles just for fun.  Really, more than half the fun of a homemade building set is engineering the pieces in the first place.

Then, you can build...

...build...

...build to your heart's content, or until you run out of tubes and circles.

Because the tubes are light and hollow, unlike wooden blocks, it's even easier to build with them on carpeted and bumpy floors.

And when they all fall down, they're much quieter than blocks too.  Making them a good choice for building when Daddy is napping.

Sorry about the gloomy pictures, but we're finally getting some real snow - making for a lovely, if dark, winter's day.

It's great to be a homeschooler.