Saturday, December 28, 2013

Dino Diorama and Fossil Cookies

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There's just something about studying dinosaurs that inspires the imagination. Huge, lumbering beasts. Enough teeth to crunch a car. And then *boom!* they're gone! We spent some time studying these guys back in Cycle 1 and made a few crafts for the little kids to go along with our schoolwork.

One of the items we made was a diorama. This was pretty simple. A box on its side was covered in paper to show a generic habitat and then the kids put their little plastic dinosaurs inside. Nothing fancy (and nothing very accurate), but it was fun.

Everyone loved the next activity: fossil cookies! I made a gluten-free shortbread base, rolled it into balls, and flattened them. Then we pressed those little plastic dinosaurs into the dough. When I pulled the cookies from the oven, we had cookies with fossil impressions. 





The kids then sat at the table and used pastry brushes to brush cocoa onto the their cookies. Okay, so this part was backwards. Usually
paleontologists brush dirt *off* fossils, but we were brushing the cocoa *on*. However, they understood the concept here of using brushes to be careful with fossils, so I think it all worked out. 




GLUTEN-FREE SHORTBREAD

1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
3 cups of brown rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and stir. Add flour, salt, and baking soda.
Bake at 350° for 12 minutes


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