Tag Archives: crafts

Marshmallows vs. Gumdrops

marshmallows

After seeing this post on the Money Saving Mom site, I decided a toothpick and marshmallow structure would be a great idea for the boys to try.

building

I bought the marshmallows and toothpicks over a month ago but kept putting off getting them out.

I am lazy.

minehis

We broke them out finally when I chose a zoo trip on the day it was closed…

It helped curb the disappointment a bit.

Well, that and ice cream.

ours

Thankfully I keep the Magic School Bus dvd’s in the vehicle so they watched the one about building bridges called “The Magic School Bus Under Construction” on the way home from the zoo.

The boys got frustrated with how flimsy the marshmallows were.

Their buildings kept leaning and it got worse the warmer our house got.

gumdrops

Since the Magic School Bus episode used gum drops, I picked up a package at the store the next day.

gumdrops2

They liked them a lot better!

They were nice and sturdy and tasted good also!

gumdropbridge

They thought their bridge should be over water…

structures

I had them do a contest to see who could build the tallest structure.

My youngest won with the one on the left.

I have seen some amazing structures done with marshmallows and spaghetti on Pinterest!

I think the boys would break them easily and get discouraged but if you have older kids or a very patient child you should try it out!

History ~Sumerian Civilization

booksI really liked the “Ancient Civilizations for Children-Mesopotamia” DVD and will probably get more from this series.

gilgimeshThe Epic of Gilgamesh was a little too scary two years ago when we studied this last so I was pretty excited we got to read some of the stories this time.

The Last Quest of Gilgamesh” touched on the flood myth, which is what I really wanted to read about since it has many similarities to Noah’s Flood.

We are still finishing “The Golden Bull” but so far it is a really good read!

It is about two children in the city of Ur and when it describes the city and different parts of their life we look it up in our reference books.

It really makes that time period come alive.

pomAfter learning that they ate Pomegranates I bought one for the boys to try.

I found this really great tutorial on how to open them.

eatingThe boys liked it a lot!

messAs you can see from this boys face.

writingI had the boys try their hand at Cuneiform again also.

All you need is some Air Dry Clay, Pictures of what it looked like, and Chopsticks.

tablet2They used reeds to make the impressions for the real thing but I found the edge of a chopstick worked pretty well.

presstabletlookingCuneiformTabletsMy youngest really enjoyed making his!

He wanted to do more but I did not really want to use up all our clay on this project!

Because I am sentimental, here are some pics from when we did this project over two years ago!

oldest lasttime oldThe cuteness is a bit too much for me…

School ~Week 4

We usually work on a subject for a month so we were finishing everything up this week.

This is to show what a lung looks like as you inhale and exhale.

You push on the bottom and the “lung” deflates.

Then we did an experiment to see if we had different lung capacities.

Both of these came from the Magic School bus Kit.

You fill a 2 liter bottle(pretend that is what I used) with water.

Put the cap back on it and put it in a bowl full of water.

Take the cap back off and put the hose inside the bottle.

Then blow into the other end of the hose.

Your air displaces the water in the bottle.

The boys could have done this all day!

I was a really nice mother and let them play with it for a long time since it was the last project of the day.

The sacrifices I make…

I of course had to get on the computer while they played.

I also decided the boys needed a fun writing project.

I gave them stickers, two little books I made, and told them to tell a story with the stickers.

After they had put the stickers they wanted in the book they had to write a story for them.

I was going to have my four year old only write the front cover and then just tell me what to write but he said it was his book so he should write in it.

Okay, then…

The teacher in me loved that he wanted to do it all himself, the mom, not so much.

It took a LONG time!

My five year old never asked me how to spell a single word.

I love those misspelled words pushed all together.

They both did a great job!

And learned that writing is a lot of fun!

I bought this game at Mardel’s when I was looking for school books.

It is fantastic!!!

We had fun just putting all the body parts on.

We called all of them by their names so it was a great learning experience!

We are officially done with the human body and moving on to Explorers next month!