edible craft

Olympics School–Day Thirteen

Like all good things, today the Olympics had to come to an end. We had to sneak in one last day of Olympics school before it was all over!

We started by making a fun snack/craft. Just as we started Olympics school with a torch craft, today we ended with one, to symbolize the passing of the torch to the next Olympic city, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I thought an edible craft would be a fun change, so we dipped pretzel rods in melted white chocolate and sprinkled with yellow sugar. (I considered red and/or orange, as well–orange was my first choice, but I couldn’t find that at Wal-Mart, so yellow it was!). Chocolate covered pretzels are always delicious, and Olympic-themed ones even more so!

Turkey and Bunny had one last written assignment–a short report on what they’ve learned about England. They covered things such as cities, popular foods, common plants and animals, and native dress (basically, fancy hats!). It was fun to see which elements of British culture really stuck with them…and if we had had a landmark section in the report, they may never have finished it, they’ve enjoyed learning about all of the famous places in England so much!

We also did “medal” math one last time. In addition to adding up the medals on our chart, we compared the total medals of each country this year to their medal totals in the Beijing Olympics, and tracked their gains and losses. We also added up all of the medals in the Commonwealth Realms, and decided that the Queen, as head of the Commonwealth, wins the Olympics!

And, since “Bolting” was so much fun, we tried doing the “Mobot,” too!

Prior to the Closing Ceremonies, we had an English meal for dinner…sausage rolls for the main course…

and a traditional English trifle for dessert!

I’m sad to see our “London Summer” come to an end…between the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, we’ve had so much British fun! Maybe we’ll just have to have an English Christmas…

Today’s Passport Stamps: English Cuisine and Citius-Altius-Fortius

The First Day of Spring

To celebrate the first day of spring, we made a fun, new project–edible bird’s nests! Conveniently, you can currently find half of the items in the Easter candy aisle, and the rest are staples available year-round.

You start by mixing chow mein noodles (12 oz.) with melted chocolate…I used almond bark (about 20 oz.).

Mold into nest shapes.

Put a few “Robin Eggs” in each nest.

Add Peeps to the nests as desired–we only put one in each nest, but if you’re nests are bigger, or you have more Peeps than we did, you can always have a pair of birds!

This was a fun, hands-on project. And while I despise marshmallow Peeps, the children do not share my feelings, and really enjoyed getting to eat the special treat they made!

And, a glimpse of a few other spring crafts we’ve made over the years…

Coffee filter flowers. Super easy to make–just decorate a basket style coffee filter with markers, then spray with water to allow colors to spread and blend. When dry, pinch the middle, then attach to a green chenille stem. Instant bouquet!

You can also use the same technique to make coffee filter butterflies. Instead of just pinching the middle, wrap the chenille stem around the whole center of the filter, and use the ends to make antennae.

This is a good project for the beginning of any season…you can even assemble it over the course of an entire year. Tissue paper makes up the leaves, (and snow), for three of the seasons, but for spring, we used a flower paper punch to decorate the tree. Fun and pretty!