Poky Little Pupppy, Paper Finger Puppet Craft

We checked out Janette Sebring Lowrey's The Poky Little Puppy, this week, after we making our cookie dogs. The children loved it, though I have to admit, now as an adult, I'm a tiny bit confused over the moral message of the story. Still the puppies are cute, and the story lends itself nicely to creative play. So, for our stART (story + ART) project today, we made five little puppy, finger puppets.

I cut all the pieces out of construction paper, and paper bags, copying some felt puppets, I found for sale, here. And, the girls glued them together.

E, age 5, was able to handle the glue on her own, even if she was a bit over generous with it, a few times.

For C, age 3, I put the glue on for her, and she placed on the paper arms, ears, nose, and google eyes.

I drew on the final touches with a marker, except for the eye spots, which E colored on, before she glued on the eyes. Then, all that was left, was to wait for them to dry (or at least partially dry), before playing with them.

After, the girls had played with their puppets for a while, we realized that sticking their fingers in, and out of the paper, was making it move in such a way, as to pop the eyes off. We solved the problem, by sticking the puppy puppets onto craft sticks, instead of fingers, and we were back in business.

For more story stretching arts, and crafts, check out this week's stART link up, at A Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pretty Good Brownies

I bookmarked a brownie recipe passed on from Gourmet.com, where they are labeled, "Better Than Ultimate Brownies", from Michelle at Scribbit, who dubbed them "Brownies That Will Kill You With Delight". Needless to say, they sounded tempting, but at the time I wasn't in a chocolaty mood. So, I bookmarked them, and forgot about them...

...until today. I don't know if they killed me with delight, or if they're really better than Ultimate Brownies (I haven't tried Ultimate Brownies, so it would be difficult to judge), but they are moist, chewy, chocolaty - and pretty good. The best part is, the recipe is for a 9x13 pan, so there's plenty for everyone.

5 - 1 ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate

3 ounces (I used 1/2 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup of butter

5 eggs

2 3/4 cups of sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon salt (I think a bit less salt wouldn't hurt)

Melt together the chocolates, and butter.

Beat together the eggs, sugar, and vanilla for 10 minutes on high (I thought that sounded insane, so I just beat them in with the chocolate, until everything was blended).

Add the flour, and salt, and mix until just barely blended.

Pour into a greased, 9X13 pan, and let the batter sit for 20 minutes (Who has 20 minutes when you're waiting for brownies? I skipped this step).

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle, comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely before serving. Yaaaah...riiiiight :)

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Wordless Wednesday - Tea With The Grandparents

Remembering last week.

Linked to Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Testing - Unschool-Style

Since we ended up with a rainy afternoon yesterday, I kept the girls in from recess, and gave them a test. Okay, we don't actually have recess - we just play, and it was more of a rainy day, craft project, than a quiz. But, since a large part of succeeding on any test, is being able to read, understand, and follow directions, it served the same purpose.

I gave each of the girls a lump of salt dough (2 parts flour, 1 part salt, and enough water to make it dough like, but not too sticky), and Brigitte Casagranda's Salt Dough Fun. It's a great book, with detailed, step by step instructions, accompanied by clear photographs, for several, simple, salt dough creations.

I told the girls, their job was to pick a project, and follow the instructions, as exactly as possible, to make it. Then, I went off to work with the younger girls. They picked a project too, but I read the instructions, and broke them into smaller pieces for them to follow.

It was an interesting exercise. G, my 11 year old, followed the written instructions pretty well. She questioned the logic, behind some of them, but agreed to give them a try. A, who is 9, followed half of the written instructions, and then guessed, incorrectly, what to do for the rest, from the pictures. I pointed out, where she had deviated from the directions, and started her over. The second time through, she followed all of the written instructions.

There was enough clay for the older girls to make two projects each. They chose to make two of the same project, rather than having to read through new instructions. I thought that was kind of funny. I think, if I had not told them it was a test, they would have been braver about picking a new project.

So, this morning, as a reward for "passing" the "test", the girls painted the baked, and cooled projects...

...with complete artistic freedom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Cookie Dogs

The idea for tonight's snack came from The Happy Homebaker. Her cookie dogs were cuter - a little more round, and apparently crunchy. But, she used Milo, and Horlicks (powdered drink mixes, I'm guessing) in her dough, and a cereal called Koko Krunch, for the ears, none of which I had available.

So, it was back to sugar cookie dough.

With, a little baker's cocoa added into the last bit, to make brown, for the ears. It's truly amazing, how many different cookies can be made, using a combination of plain, and chocolate sugar cookie doughs.

We finished them up with chocolate sprinkle eyes, and chocolate chip noses.

And, when they came out of the oven, I was reminded almost instantly, of The Poky Little Puppy, which clearly, I'm going to have to pick up, from the library, in the morning.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Solar Cooking Second Thoughts

The children, and I had some fun, and limited success, with a couple different homemade solar cookers, last summer. I've been really looking forward to the return of summer, so we can give it another go. Actually, I had hoped to be able to try our cookers out in the winter, when the outside temperature was really low. But, I discovered, that even though this is called "Big Sky Country", and we do see a lot of blue sky, we don't really have that many perfectly clear, and cloudless days.

So, when I realized today was sunny, and beautiful, I asked the girls to whip up a couple of our Easy Bake Oven mixes (just 3 tablespoons of regular cake mix, and 1 tablespoon of water, so no eggs, or anything to worry about undercooking), while I dug around for our Boy Scout style, pizza box, solar oven. We've had better success with our windshield shade cooker, but I didn't have any turkey bags on hand, so I went with the enclosed box style, that doesn't require a bag.

We sat the cakes out at noon.

Three hours later, despite a forecast for sun, the sky looked like this...

...and the cakes looked like this...

I saved them, by sticking them into the oven, for a few minutes, while I preheated it for a batch of cookies. But, considering the girls have been baking these cakes in 12 minutes, under the heat of a light bulb - I'm having some serious, solar, second thoughts. Perhaps it's time to leave solar cooking to the people in the sunny south, and find some new hobby for the summer.

However, our foray into solar cooking, has caused us to be much more aware of our local weather patterns, alternative energy sources, and the plight of people in other parts of the world, where harnessing this type of energy is a matter of survival, rather than entertainment, or curiosity. So, I'd still recommend giving it a try, even if you live in less than sunny circumstances.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Space Dust for Science Sunday

We're in the middle of painting, and rearranging the children's rooms this weekend, so we kept our experiment for Science Sunday pretty simple.

I read on a couple of different sites, that you can find tiny bits of meteorites in your own backyard, using only a piece of paper, and a magnet.

Before bed last night, we sat out two pieces of white paper, in different spots in the yard. This works best on a clear, windless night, and you need to weight the paper down, so it won't blow away.

This morning, we brought our papers in, being careful not to lose any of the bits of dirt, and dust, that had accumulated on them during the night. When we passed a magnet over them (our magnet is pretty strong), the little pieces of meteorite (which contain iron), jumped up to the magnet.

I brushed them off into a pile, and let the children examine the space dust closer.

I really wasn't expecting it to work. It just sounded too easy. So, I was as surprised as the children, to see the little space bits, jumping up to the magnet. Of course, it's just frosting on the cake, that we had They Might Be Giants' "What is A Shooting Star", on hand to listen to (if you're curious, click here).

For more fun with science, check out this week's Science Sunday link-up, at Adventures in Mommydom.

It's great to be a homeschooler.