Cyberchase Weather Watchers - A Weekly Unplugged Project

The mountains were fogged in this morning, giving us a perfect lead in to a dew point experiment from the PBS Kids' Cyberchase site, that we had planned today as our weekly Unplugged Project. This weeks theme being weather, we were thrilled to discover a series of Cyberchase episodes featuring weather, and accompanied on the PBS Kids website by printable weather worksheets, and follow-up experiments.

We started our day today, by watching "Cyberchase: Gone With The Fog", on YouTube, over breakfast.

Then worked on a dew point experiment.

First, we determined our room temperature, by filling a can with water, and measuring the temperature on the outside of the can.

Then, we added ice, a little at a time to the can...

...until condensation appeared on the outside.

We had to take the show's word for it that the dew point is 45 degrees Fahrenheit, as our thermometer did not go that low. But the children were able to use it to observe the temperature dropping within the can, before the condensation appeared.

It might seem a little strange to use a television show as the basis for an Unplugged project (the idea of which is to promote time away from the television), but the number of hands on activities provided on the website, make the Cyberchase Weather Watcher pages, too good to pass up. And, the actual project, did lead us away from the televison, into the real world.

Be sure to visit Unplug Your Kids, to explore more weather related project.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Homemade Tootsie Rolls

We've been making a lot of sugary goodies lately, but my son was in the kitchen today, looking for something to do, and I couldn't very well turn him away. I'm all for encouraging his interests, especially when they take him away from video games for an hour or two. So, it was back to our "must try" recipe file. This time we chose a Tootsie Roll copycat recipe to try.

We actually found several different recipes for Tootsie Roll like candies. Some require cooking on the stove, and using a candy thermometer. Others, use the microwave to melt chocolate, before mixing. And finally, there's the really simple ones, that don't require any cooking at all.

We figured we might as well start with a simple one. I'm not sure who to credit for the recipe, it's another one of those that's become common knowledge. But if it was your original recipe, please let me know.

Mix together:

• 2 tablespoons softened butter, or margarine


• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder


• 3 cups powdered sugar


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 3/4 cup instant powdered milk (some recipes call for dry milk instead, which is something entirely different - we used instant powdered milk).


• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
  

Knead the dough until it is firm and smooth.

Roll it into a rope.

Wrap the rope in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about an hour.

Remove the rope from the plastic wrap, and cut into smaller sections.

Or, just shape each individual section by hand, after kneading.

Even the little ones were able to help with this step. The dough was very play dough like. In fact, if your thinking about making chocolate play dough - this would be an excellent recipe.

My husband, and the children, thought these were pretty close to the real thing. They certainly are yummy, and do taste similar to Tootsie Rolls. But, they are a little too soft. There's something about the texture that reminds me of the Ayds diet candies, my parents tried to keep hidden on the top shelf in the kitchen back in the 70's. Of course, those were pretty yummy too.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Super Simple Pumpkin Pie Fruit Leather

We had some pumpkin pie mix left over after making the pumpkin ice cream, that I didn't want to waste (apparently, we're in the middle of a national pumpkin shortage). So, I decided to try turning it into a fruit leather snack for the kids.

I spread the mix out, as thin as possible, over a cookie sheet, covered in aluminum foil, sprayed with a non-stick cooking spray.

I baked it at the lowest setting on our oven (170 degrees Fahrenheit), for 4 1/2 hours. After removing it from the oven, I cut it into pumpkin shapes, with a pumpkin cookie cutter, while it was still warm.

I let it sit for a few more hours on the counter, to dry a little more, and then peeled the shapes off the foil, removing the extra bits first, and then cutting the foil apart, to make it easier to peel away.

I'm sure it could have been rolled in wax paper, and stored in an airtight container for a while, but ours didn't last that long. After smelling the delicious pumpkin pie aroma all day long, the children were ready to sample it, as soon as it was ready. And although, pumpkin pie fruit leather might sound a little odd, it turns out to be a pretty tasty treat. It received a thumbs up all around - in our house, anyway.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater Circle Craft

Items needed:

• orange and green construction paper


• child sized scissors


• one brass fastener per pumpkin


• crayons


• glue

Draw two identical circles on orange construction paper, for the children to cut out. We traced ours around the lid of a sugar dish.

Cut one small rectangle from green construction paper, for the pumpkin stem.

After the children have cut out the circles, have them draw Mrs. Pumpkin Eater on one of the circles.

Glue the stem to the top of the Mrs. Pumpkin Eater circle.

Cut the remaining circle in half.

Place the circle halves, overlapping slightly, on top of the first circle.

Use a hole punch, to make a hole through the overlapping part of the circle, and the circle underneath.

Place a brass paper faster through the hole, so that it opens on the back of the first circle. Watch little ones with the fasteners - they are a choking hazard.

Recite the Pumpkin Eater rhyme, opening the shell to reveal Mrs. Pumpkin Eater, at the end.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pumpkin Shape Poetry - Concrete Children's Poetry

We worked for quite a while with concrete poetry, or shape poetry, yesterday. Shape poetry, is when a poem takes the shape of the object it describes.

The girls wrote simple poems about pumpkins. On a blank sheet of paper, they drew the outline of a pumpkin shape, with a dark colored marker. Then placed another sheet of paper over the first, and using the pumpkin outline, underneath, as a guide, they rewrote their poems, following the pumpkin shapes.

For younger children, it can be fun to do the same thing with descriptive words, instead of a full blown poem. Ask them to help you brainstorm words that describe pumpkins (or leaves, or apples, or owls...), lightly print them out around the shape, and let the children trace the letters in an appropriate color.

My oldest son, who is always looking for a short cut when it comes to these sort of projects, asked if he could just write a pumpkin haiku instead.

My response was - "Do you know how to write a haiku?"

To which he answered, "I think so."

"Where did you learn about haiku's?" I asked.

I'm pretty sure we've never done a lesson on Japanese poetry.

"Veggie Tales," he answered.

And, that was that.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches

What do you get when you combine pumpkin shaped gingerbread cookies with kick the can pumpkin ice cream?

A yummy treat for the first day of October!

For the gingerbread cookies, we used Betty Crocker's gingerbread people recipe, and cut them with a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter.

For the ice cream, we mixed:

• 1 pint of heavy cream


• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar


• 4 tablespoons vanilla pudding mix


• 1 3/4 cup canned pumpkin pie mix

We mixed them together in a two pint container. We sealed the container with duct tape, and placed it surrounded by ice, layered with ice cream/rock salt, in a larger container, which we also sealed with duct tape. Then, we kicked the containers around the yard for about a half an hour. Finally, we removed the inner container, rinsed it off, stirred the contents, and placed it in the freezer for a couple of hours.

After the ice cream had hardened a bit, we scooped it with a spoon onto the cookies, to make the sandwiches. Then returned to the sandwiches to the freezer to set up a little more before eating. The ice cream turned out really yummy, by the way, as good as any I've ever bought from the store.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Snow Pumpkin

For stART this week (story + art, hosted by A Mommy's Adventures), we read Snow Pumpkin, written by Carole Lexa Schaefer, and illustrated by Pierr Morgan. It is a story about an October snow, and a pumpkin which seems to have a face. We picked it out at the library, after noticing the dusting of snow on the mountains, and hearing the weekend forecast for snow on the valley floor.

The two pumpkins growing in our own sad little patch, are still quite green, and neither seems to have a face. So, the little ones made their own snow pumpkins out of paper plates, using glue, tissue, and construction paper.

We used water down glue, instead of glue sticks, so they could "paint" the glue on to the plates, and then they pressed on orange tissue paper, and glued on the construction paper stems.

When their pumpkins were dry, they added on faces with pumpkin seeds, pom poms, and googly eyes.

Finally, I helped them pull apart a few cotton balls to glue on for snow.

The older children, cut a paper snowflakes, to place around the pumpkins, just like in the story.

And, while the children would love to see an early snow, I'm hoping, for the sake of our real pumpkins, that it stays in the mountains for a few more weeks.

It's great to be a homeschooler.