Lion and Lamb Cookies for March

Our craft last night, inspired our snack for today. It turns out a flower cookie shape, works quite nicely for both a lion, and a lamb. You can find similar cookies in Google Images. I didn't really copy any one in particular, but I definitely got my inspiration from there.

These could be done a lot more frugally by using homemade frosting, but I had bought some of these store bought frosting tubes, that come with the decorative tips, on a sale, after blowing out my pastry bag, so I figured I might as well use them.

I drew the faces on, with an edible pen, but they could just as easily have been piped on with frosting. Then I piped on black ears, and legs for the sheep, and surrounded them with white frosting, using a star tip. I used the star tip for the lions' manes too, but with orange frosting.

I think these would be cute, frosted in white, or orange, with marshmallow wool, and candy sprinkle manes, too. Either way, they're super simple, and just in time for March.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

March Lion and Lamb Craft

The groundhog might not have seen his shadow, but March looks like it might come in like a lamb, leaving us with some lionish weather yet to come (at least, if you buy into the folklore). This time of year it's difficult to tell, though. Just because this week's weather has been beautiful, doesn't necessarily mean it will hold through next week. Either way, we're ready, with an adaption of Kathy Ross' changing seasons, tree, puppet craft, which we did last fall.

My pictures are pretty dark tonight, I'm sorry, my light was worse than I thought. But, you can click back to our fall craft, if you need clearer instruction.

Before I brought the girls in, I made the base of the puppets, by cutting one black, construction paper circle, using a salad plate as a guide, and one and a half orange circles.

I stapled the orange, half circle to the black circle.

Then, I cut a slit in the orange circle, horizontally, across the center, big enough for the width of the girls' hands.

With the half circle at the top of the black circle, I placed the orange circle on top of it, and then stapled the bottom half of the orange circle, to the bottom half of the black circle.

For my younger daughter, I added ears, and a face, in white crayon on the black, and in black crayon on the orange.

My 5 year old drew her own faces.

Then, the girls glued strips of brown construction paper around the orange circle, for the lion's mane.

And, they glued cotton balls around the face of the sheep.

Once, the glue was dry, the girls were ready to make some weather predictions of their own.

Lamb:

Lion:

Lamb:

Lion:

They seemed pretty serious, but I'm getting a mixed message.

In case you're wondering about the origin of the phrase, "In like a lion, out like a lamb", click here, for a fascinating cartoon explanation by Jack Horkheimer. I'm not sure if it's right or not, but it's the best theory I've come across so far.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

More Timeline Fun - American History

I was looking through my sticker stash this morning, to see if I could find a moon sticker, to mark the first moon landing on our timeline. I didn't find a moon, but I did find a set of 50 state stickers, pulled out of a promotional mailing from Highlights' Which Way USA book club. I didn't subscribe to the book club, because in the past, although I really thought their Top Secret Adventures were a wonderful way to study world geography, it was like pulling teeth to get the kids to do them, so I veer away from those now.

But, I saved the stickers, that came with the ad, and it was a good thing too, because when combined with the information from Loreen Leedy's Celebrate the 50 States!, they were perfect for our timeline. As, I mentioned before, when we had a more spacious timeline, just for American history, we had space to fit a cutout of each state's shape on the timeline according to when it became a state.

With only a 1/4 inch per year on our world history timeline, we'd have to cut out some pretty tiny states, to make them fit, especially with the American presidents hogging so much space. But, the stickers worked nicely.

One of the older girls looked up the states in Leedy's book, and called out the year it became a state, while her sister put them on the timeline.

I did a few with the younger children, too. They helped by peeling the stickers off for me, and then perused the state pages, while I stuck them up.

I'm glad to have the states represented on our timeline again. It gives a nice feel to how our country came together.

So, the moral of this story (or is it the point of the post?), is timelines are a terrific way to bring coherency to your home studies, especially if you are pursuing an eclectic, or unschooling style. And also - always, always save your stickers!

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Edible Glossy Paint

I had planned on using the can of sweetened condensed milk above, to make another batch of Dulce de Leche, but I found different use for it at KinderArt.com, that was easier on my waistline, and a fun art activity for the kids, to boot.

I divided the sweetened condensed milk out into several bowls, and a few drops of food coloring to each bowl. After a quick taste, we were ready to paint.

I tried to discourage further tasting once the paint brushes went in, but that was really a futile effort.

The kids had a great time sampling, and painting. The texure of this paint is pretty unique, it's thick, and needless to say - sticky, but it spreads, and blends nicely, and dries with a pretty glossy texture.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

As American As Soda Cracker Pie, and Science in the Kitchen.

I love hands on learning, really love it. And, it if happens to come in the form of a dessert...

...hmm, let's just say I was pretty happy when a discussion of American symbols led us from apple pie (as American as Mom, baseball, and apple pie), to WWII (as in, "Why are you going to war?" - "For Mom and apple pie!"), to the Johny Appleseed, the pioneers, the civil war, and the depression (how do you make apple pie, when apples are scarce?), which of course, led us to mock apple pie.

The funny thing was, I already had mock apple pie, or soda cracker pie, on my list of science project to-dos. It is a science project, thanks to one very special ingredient - potassium hydrogen tartrate (KC4H5O6), or in other words, cream of tarter. It helps to keep the crackers firm, and boosts up the acidity of the lemon juice, which when combined with cinnamon, and nutmeg, convinces the brain, at least the brain familiar with apply desserts, that apples must be present. That's the theory, anyway - we had to try it out for ourselves.

I made up a pie crust, and the children added 18 saltines, broken in half.


Then, we mixed together 1 1/4 cup of water, 1 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (if the pioneers, and depression era folks didn't have apples, did they have lemon juice?), 1 tablespoon of cream of tarter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg.


And, we poured it over the crackers.


It didn't look very appetizing - not at all like apple pie.

But, we proceeded anyway, covering the pie with a few more strips of crust, and baking it at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for just over 1/2 hour.

It certainly smelled like apple pie. By the time it was done baking it even looked like apple pie.


As for the taste - we had enough pie crust left over to make a few muffin sized pies, with real apples, for comparison...and...

...the mock pie held up pretty well. The texture, and flavor were surprisingly close. I thought it was a touch too salty, but with ice cream, I don't think a person would notice.

If you'd like to know more about the science, and history of soda cracker pies, then click here for an excellent Squidoo post. It even contains an ode, of sorts, to cream of tarter, and some slightly different directions for the Taste of Home recipe, we used above.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

The English Breakfast Murder - Review

The English Breakfast Murder is the 4th book out of 10 in the Tea Shop Mystery series by Laura Childs. The 11th book, The Teaberry Strangler, is due out next month. I have read through the entire series already, except for this one, which I somehow missed. So, I figured I would correct my omission, and read book number 4, as my second entry in the Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge, being hosted by Book Chick City.

At 265 pages, this cozy mystery novel, featuring amateur sleuth, Theodosia Browning, owner of a Charleston tea shop, is a quick weekend read. It's perfect for the mystery loving foodie, as Theodosia solves a crime, while serving up delicious scones, and muffins, along with interesting bits of tea trivia.

The Tea Shop Mysteries are my favorite of Childs' three mystery series, which also include the Scrapbooking Mysteries, and the Crackleberry Club Mysteries, probably because I love tea houses, almost as much as I love mysteries. Also, I find the frantic, multi-tasking pace of the main character, contagious. I have an urge to do more, when I'm reading one of these novels. And then, there's the rich description of Charleston scenery, and culture. And, of course, the delicious recipes at the end of the book, don't hurt either.

This particular book contains recipes for "Haley's Sweet Potato Muffins, Blackberry Cobbler", "Chilled Peach Soup", "Ginger-Pear Scones", "Miniature Almond Cakes", "Tea-Bone Sauce", and "Planked Fish", as well as instruction on tea dyeing fabric, and tips for tea time entertaining. As to the story itself, well...it's a bit two dimensional, and formulaic, sort of like watching an episode of Murder She Wrote, but then I like Murder She Wrote, and I enjoyed this novel too.






For the 2010 Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge, this makes two books out of twelve for me, so far.

1. Eggs Benedict Arnold by Laura Childs


2. The English Breakfast Murder by Laura Childs

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Kid's Science - Carbonic Acid

While researching last week's Science Sunday experiment, I came across a couple of experiments, dealing with carbonic acid, that I thought would be fun to try out with the kids, today.

Carbonic Acid (H2CO3) is a combination of water (H2O), and carbon dioxide (CO2). It is also what causes that slightly uncomfortable, tingling sensation on your tongue when you sip your soda pop. We experienced this for ourselves, with an experiment from Education World.

I gave each of the children a small cup of pop (they are always interested in soda pop science, because we don't normally give them pop to drink), and then timed them to see how long they could hold their tongues in the liquid. It proved to be a very difficult challenge!

We used pH paper to test the acidity of Coke Zero. Not surprisingly it showed high acidity. What was surprising though, was our flat soda, one of Daddy's old ones we pulled out of the fridge :), was also quite acidic, though the flat soda didn't hurt the tongue. After checking the ingredients on the side of the can, we decided this was due to the presence of the phosphoric acid (also what makes Coke a good rust remover!).

Keeping our findings above in mind, we moved on to another experiment we found on the website of Wind Cave National Park. This time, we tried to make water acidic by adding carbon dioxide to it. Where did we get the carbon dioxide?

If there's one thing we learned from watching Apollo 13, last night, it's that people breath out carbon dioxide!

Following the instructions of the experiment, we tried blowing through a straw, into a glass of water for one minute, and then testing the acidity of the water with pH paper. We tried it with cold water, and warm water. We tried it with a full glass, and with an almost empty glass. And we tried it with one person blowing into the glass, and with two people blowing into the glass. But, we couldn't seem to make carbonic acid. Our pH papers looked just the same before, during, and after we blew into the water.

This was disappointing, but it did give us a chance to discuss the fact, that there are a number of variables, that can effect the outcome of an experiment. Were our straws too big? Were we blowing too vigorously? Did the water need to be warmer? We used filtered water, instead of distilled water, would that make a difference? Hmm...we have a lot to think about.

In the meantime, you can find a number of other fun, and hopefully successful, science experiments, and projects for children, at this week's Science Sunday link up, hosted by Adventures in Mommydom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.