Ocean Biome in a Shoebox

The other week, Emily had to make an ocean biome in a shoebox for her science class. She put a lot of thought into how she wanted her biome to look and I thought it turned out really neat. It even had a stingray that moved!

In case you're curious, these are the supplies that we used and how we put it together.

For the box, we just used a cardboard shipping box. I cut the flaps off. The first thing we did was cover the outside with colorful wrapping paper so that the box would look "finished" on the inside as well as the outside. Just wrap it like you would wrap a gift and tuck the ends of the paper inside the box. The inside of the box will get covered up so it doesn't have to look neat.

Next, Emily took some printed scrapbooking paper that had a water pattern on it. We got two pieces of 12X12 paper and we needed probably twice that much. We could only cover the back and sides of our box, but not the top or the bottom. We just used white printer paper for the top and bottom. Just fold the paper and glue it down with white school glue.

For the coral reef on the left side of the box, I printed a picture of some coral off the internet and pasted it to a small piece of cardboard. Then Emily cut the cardboard/picture and pasted it onto the bottom of the box. We had gotten some small plastic ocean animals from Hobby Lobby as well as some small fake plants. These are sold in the hobby section of the store and are things that are used to make miniature models and things like that. 

The animals that we got were made of a squishy plastic, sort of like a pencil eraser. Since they were soft, I was able to use a needle to thread a piece of fishing line through the back of the animal so that we could suspend them in the box to make them look like they're swimming. 

The "sand" at the bottom of the ocean is actually brown sugar that we glued to the box with white school glue. We also added some pieces of cardboard to make the ocean floor look uneven. We attached some turtles to the seafloor using hot glue as well. We made the mistake of trying to hot glue the turtle to the floor after we'd put on the sand, but the turtle kept falling off. We eventually had to scrape some of the sand/brown sugar and hot glue the turtle down and then add more brown sugar around it. So, don't do like us and make sure you attach your animals before you add the sand. 

Another fun thing that Emily wanted to do was make a stingray that could cruise across the ocean floor. I cut a slit into the top of our box to facilitate this. I used the needle and fishing line to attach the stingray, then tied the finishing line through the holes of a large button. Then we threaded the stingray through the slit in the top of the box. The problem was that the thin fishing line would not travel smoothly through the slit in the box. So, we added a small safety pin that would add more stability as it slid down the slit in the box. We also put scotch tape all along both sides of the slit in the box to help the safety pin move more smoothly. This did the trick! We used hot glue to attach a starfish to the top of the button.

All the kids in Emily's class thought it was pretty cool that her stingray moved. That little button contraption has gotten a lot of use and is still going strong. (Perhaps I should sell it on EBAY? I could probably get a lot of money for it!) She said that none of the other kids had animals that moved in their biome box. 

Read more »

Mother's Day 2017 - Barbados Coconut Turnovers

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

I didn't get to see my mother or my mother-in-law today, but I did get to spend some times with the ones who made me a mother.

We went to lunch after church.

This afternoon, Emily and I worked on an extra credit project for her social studies class. She and a partner had to pick a country and put together a presentation on it and make a specialty dish that the country is known for.

Emily and her partner chose Barbados. Her partner was out of town this weekend so I helped Emily with her dish. She wanted to make Macaroni Pie, but I was not sure if they would have a way to keep it refrigerated at school and then heat it up at the appropriate time so we picked another dish that could be served at room temperature.

We settled on Coconut Turnovers. She had to make enough to serve her entire class so that was a pretty big project. I thought they turned out great though. The bun is really soft with a nice crunch sugary topping and the inside is sweet and warm. YUM!

Barbados Coconut Turnovers Recipe

Adapted from Barbados.org

Dough

• 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4oz cold butter 
• ¼ cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm milk (approx 110-115 degrees F)
• ⅓ cup sugar water (dissolve sugar in water)
• Brown sugar

Filling

• 2 cups grated or shredded coconut (fresh or frozen; NOT dried coconut)
• ¾ cup white granulated sugar
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Instructions

Mix the flour and salt, then cut in the cold butter until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency.

In a separate bowl, mix the white sugar, yeast and milk.

Combine the wet ingredients with the dry, mixing to form a dough. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board and knead gently for 1-2 minutes.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, leave somewhere warm and let rise for about 1 hour (the dough should double in size).

Combine the filling ingredients in a bowl, stirring well so that the sugar begins to dissolve and the mixture is moist. Set aside.

Punch down the risen dough and lightly knead it for a minute. Cut the dough into 20 equal pieces. With each piece, roll into a 3-inch circle, place a heaping tablespoon of the filling in the center; spread the filling out to ½-inch from the edges. Lift one end of the dough to the other, folding and sealing the ends together. Form into a loaf shape.

Place each turnover on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, seam-side down. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Brush turnovers with sugar water and sprinkle with brown sugar, then place in an oven preheated to 350F. After 18 minutes, brush again with sugar water, sprinkle with more brown sugar, and allow to bake for another 2-3 minutes. This will help develop a sugary crust. Remove from the oven and cool on racks for 15 minutes.

Turnovers are best eaten warm. 

Read more »

Emily's Salt Dough Map

A few weeks ago, Emily's class made 3D salt dough maps in class.  We had to make the salt dough at home and send it to school in a plastic baggie and provide the pizza box and supplies to decorate the map, but they did the rest of the project in class.

Salt Dough Recipe

4 cups flour

2 cups salt

2 Tbsp cream of tartar

1 1/2 to 2 cups water (add a little at a time until it's the consistency of Play-Doh)

Mix together the dry ingredients then add the water a little bit at a time until the dough is the consistency of Play-Doh. Don't be afraid to use your hands. Knead for a few minutes until smooth. 

I told Emily that we could whip up this dough really quick with the Kitchenaid mixer, but Emily said that her teacher said to mix it by hand. Okay fine. You can do it by hand, too. 

I thought Emily's map turned out GREAT! I was really impressed with it. She decorated it with acrylic paints and labeled it with a Sharpie marker. 

Read more »

How to Make an Edible Animal Cell Cake

Several weeks ago, Emily had the opportunity to make a cell cake for extra credit in her science class. It could be made of any food as long as it was all edible and large enough to feed half of her class.

She chose to make an animal cell cake, which is round. We did a lot of research on the internet to get some ideas for what to use for different parts of the cake.

Emily wanted to look like the cell was cut open so we baked one cake in a large round baking pan and another cake in a large glass bowl to make a dome for the top of the cell. We cut off some dome cake so that we can add in all of our cell parts. 

Here are the items we used for different parts of the animal cell:

Yellow frosting - Cytoplasm

Orange frosting - Cell membrane (add red food coloring to the yellow frosting to make things easy on yourself)

White candy melts - Ribosomes

Airhead Extreme candy belts - Golgi body

Large round lollipop - Nucleus

Sour gummy worms - Rough ER

Red Mike & Ike - Smooth ER

Orange frosting - Nuclear membrane (put some frosting in a plastic baggie and snip off the end to pipe the frosting around the nucleus)

Red gummy bears - Mitochondria

White jelly beans - Vacuole

If you try it, let me know how it goes for you.

Read more »