Jello Igloo

After finishing our Alaskan totem poles, Trevor and I were eager to try the last of the twelve activities in the Little Passports Alaska Journal called "Eat an Igloo."

To make the igloo, we mixed Berry Blue Jello and unflavored gelatin. 

We added water, then poured the Jello into a mixing bowl and a prep bowl that we'd coated with cooking spray. As per the instructions, we put the bowls in the freezer. 

The instructions clearly state to freeze the Jello for four hours. As soon as the bowls went into the freezer, we left the house for the latest 40-4-Steve adventure and didn't return home until late. When we finally took the bowls out of the freezer, about 24 hours had passed. The Jello was rock-solid, with a thick coat of ice on the surface. Oops.

I don't know if the fact that it was frozen solid made a difference (probably yes), but I had the darnedest time trying to remove the Jello from the bowls. While I struggled, Trevor made the cream cheese frosting. Once they were finally free from the bowls, we arranged the semi-circles of Jello on a plate. 

Then it was time for piping. Trevor has taken a number of cake decorating classes and is decent at piping, but it turns out that piping on frozen Jello is not the same as piping on cake. It's a lot harder. We worked together to find a technique that worked well enough.

Here's our finished igloo. Rather than throw out the remaining frosting, we used it to create snow around the base of the igloo.

Unfortunately, none of us were particularly enamored with the taste of frosted blue Jello. But the project was really fun. I could see us making something like this again, but using a white cake instead of Jello. As always, I highly recommend Little Passports for cool geography-based projects like this!

Cardboard Tube Totem Pole Craft

Check out the totem poles that Trevor and I made!

We discovered this fun craft in the Little Passports Alaska Journal. It was a fantastic way to remember the beautiful totem poles and majestic animals we saw during our trip to Alaska last month.

Totem Pole Craft

Materials: 

• construction paper 
• paper towel tube 
• a ruler
• a pencil
• scissors
• markers
• tape and/or glue
• binder clips 

Steps: 

Start by wrapping a piece of construction paper around the cardboard tube. Cut the paper so that it is the same height as the tube and has only a slight overlap in the back. Lay the paper flat on the table. Use the ruler and pencil to draw horizontal lines that divide it into four equal parts. 

Draw the face of one Alaskan animal in each of the four parts. This is mine, with an eagle, bear, beaver and orca. 

Attach the paper to the tube. We put glue along the edges and the back seam, then taped over the back seam and secured the whole thing with binder clips. 

 
While the glue is drying, create wings for any birds on your totem pole. Glue them to the back.

The Alaska Journal tells what an eagle, bear, wolf and whale symbolize; Trevor and I did some research to learn what the Alaskan animals we'd chosen represent. You might choose to learn about the symbolism first and then select the animals, but we really enjoyed seeing what our selections said about each of us!

This is mine. The eagle stands for power, wisdom and leadership. The bear stands for strength, motherhood and protection. The beaver symbolizes vision, planning and hard work. The orca stands for strength, power and grace.

This is Trevor's. The rabbit symbolizes good luck, beginnings, and abundance. The eagle symbolizes power, wisdom and leadership. The lynx represents silence, balance and perception. The moose stands for protection, adaptation and discernment.

Thanks to Little Passports for another fun and educational activity for Trevor and me to do together!

Sidewalk Chalk for the First Day of School

Today is Trevor's first day of 5th grade, which is the best grade of all! I am so excited for him and hope he has a spectacular year. I think he will. 

Trevor's school does something neat that I wish we'd done when I was a teacher. The incoming 5th graders are invited to come the day before school starts to decorate the pavement at the front of the school with chalk. These messages and drawings welcome all the TK-4th grade students to the school. Here's Trevor with his principal and four classmates.

The kids filled the squares with colorful welcome messages, helpful hints, the school motto, and the school mascot.

Some of the parents helped too. I made this block about using your WITS to work out problems. 

 

I also made this one about the the 3 Be's: Be safe, be kind, and be responsible. 

The photos don't do the artwork justice. The entrance way looks so bright and colorful and welcoming. Great job, 5th graders! Have a fantastic school year!

More Round-Ups for Fun Family Crafts

Time to share another batch of craft round-ups I've made for Fun Family Crafts!

First up, Olympics crafts. I included two of the crafts Trevor and I made for his Olympics-themed birthday party amongst the ten featured. Can you spot them?

Here's the s'mores round-up. There's one of mine in this batch. In fact, it's my all-time most popular post! 

I updated the graphic on the Back-to-School round-up. I'd made the previous one before discovering PicMonkey and it needed improvement. The newer version is cleaner, brighter and more eye-catching. One of my crafts is pictured.

Next, a baseball round-up. Two of mine are in there; in fact, I didn't realize until now that I positioned them side-by-side.

As always, I made the round-ups using the premium version of PicMonkey. I already loved it, but it just keeps getting better. They've added a bunch of new features recently, including some great themed overlays. (I used "Games and Glory" for the icons on the Olympics Round-up and "Great Outdoors" for the S'mores Round-up). The free version of PicMonkey is great, but the premium is completely worth it if you ever do any photo editing whatsoever. Just the clone and blemish-fix features alone make it worth it for me.  

Blackball Card Game

As promised, this post explains the card game Blackball, as played by my family during our 2016 Family Olympics.

Photo Source

I asked Trevor to write out the instructions for me and here's what I received. Let me know if you have any questions. It's really not all that complicated, but explaining it is a little tricky.

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Blackball Card Game Rules

To play Blackball, each player needs a paper set up like this:

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|1. |

|2. |

|3. |

|4. |

|5. |

|6. |

|7. |

|6. |

|5. |

|4. |

|3. |

|2. |

|1. |

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For the first round, everyone gets 1 card. The dealer flips over another card and the suit of that card will be the trump suit for that round. You look at your card. If it is a high card (cards are rated 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace.) and you think you will take the trick, then you write down a 1 after 1 like this:

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|1. 1 |

|2. |

|3. |

|4. |

|5. |

|6. |

|7. |

|6. |

|5. |

|4. |

|3. |

|2. |

|1. |

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If you do not think it is a good enough card to take the trick, write a 0 after 1 like this:

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|1. 0 |

|2. |

|3. |

|4. |

|5. |

|6. |

|7. |

|6. |

|5. |

|4. |

|3. |

|2. |

|1. |

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The number you wrote shows how many tricks you think will win. For round 1, the only choices are 0 or 1.

To play, the person to the left of the dealer shows his card. Then each person clockwise shows theirs. The highest card in the suit that was lead takes the trick. However, if a trump card is played, it wins. If more than one trump card is played, the highest one wins.

If your guess was correct, then you add a one before the number and you get that many points. So a guess of 1 becomes 11 points.

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|1. 11 points |

|2. |

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|6. |

|7. |

|6. |

|5. |

|4. |

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A guess of 0 becomes 10 points.

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|1. 10 points |

|2. |

|3. |

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|5. |

|6. |

|7. |

|6. |

|5. |

|4. |

|3. |

|2. |

|1. |

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If your guess is wrong, color in the number you guessed and make it a black ball. It's worth 0 points.

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|1.⚫ points |

|2. |

|3. |

|4. |

|5. |

|6. |

|7. |

|6. |

|5. |

|4. |

|3. |

|2. |

|1. |

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Then you play the second round. The deal passes to the left. This time everyone gets 2 cards and you guess whether you'll take 0, 1, or 2 tricks. Like before, the person on the dealer's left starts by showing one card. Everyone else plays a card in order clockwise. You have to play the same suit the dealer led if you have it. The person who takes that first trick leads the second card. After the two tricks, you put a 1 before your guess if you guessed 0, 1 or 2 correctly. If you guessed incorrectly, draw a black ball over your guess.

The deal passes to the left after each round. For round three, you get three cards and there are three tricks, so you guess whether you'll take 0, 1, 2 or 3 of them. For rounds 4, 5 and 6, you get that 4, 5 and 6 cards and there are 4, 5 and 6 tricks.

When you get to round 7, each player gets 7 cards, but there is no trump.

The next round goes back to 6 cards with a trump. You work your way back down 5, 4, 3, 2, and finally 1 card for the final round. After the 13th round, add up your points. The maximum possible is 179 points, which would mean that you took every single trick in the game and guessed correctly that you would for all 13 rounds. The lowest possible score is zero, which means you guessed incorrectly for all 13 rounds.