Tuesday, May 14, 2013

A Salt Dough Map

Salt Dough.  

What kind of dough? People make this on purpose?  Can't we just color a coloring page map instead?  Those were my thoughts after reading the instructions in our unit study on the United Kingdom.

The silly words "fun family project" kept screaming at me from the page though and I relented and said "ok let's make a salt dough map!"  Which caused delighted squeals to erupt from my hands on learner. (the other "not really a hands on" kid was excited too because this project was the last thing on our assignment list for the day. (-;)

You see, I'm not good at projects. Actually if I am being honest I loathe them. When my kids were in public school and had projects to do my husband would take the reigns because he is the one who excels at feather covered turkeys, volcano building and any kind of diorama you can think of. I on the other hand would rather make the snacks that are needed for such hard work. :-)

Since said husband was busy working this project fell into my lap. So what did I do, I fell to my knees covered my face and screamed "Nooooooooo" of course.

Ok not really, it was more along the lines of "if this is a big flop it better be a fun one".  I did, however, inform my artsy girl who likes to color and paint, that I was sorry in advance for the failure that might be our salt dough map. She assured me that we could it because "I like to paint and you like to cook mom!".

Uh yeah. We'll see...

So we dove right in.

I sent the kids to the garage to search for a piece of cardboard and I pulled out the flour and the salt.


Then we traced the outline on to the cardboard.


The dough was actually pretty easy to do. I followed Kris's directions over at weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.

Then we our hands got a little sticky pressing the dough into our traced country.



We let it dry for a few days. Ok, so it was dry the next morning, but we got side tracked doing some other projects that included cooking which is much more my forte.



Anyways...we let it dry for a few days and the girl painted it.

All in all it turned out great for our first adventure into salt dough mapping.

It was messy and fun and we will be doing more of them.

Have you had to do any school stuff that is not really your thing? Remember it can be fun to try new things, plus you never know, you may enjoy that one school thing you are dreading so...go for it. Make a mess, laugh and giggle with with your little people.

April
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3 comments:

  1. Good job with your map. We have done a few of these over the years and I think it's a wonderful way to learn geography! betty jo

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  2. Looks good! I myself love to do many projects and don't mind getting things messy but I don't so much enjoy following other people's directions on the sort of project I should do - so I understand your hesitance. I am glad it ended up going well for you!

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  3. Oh, yes...those projects. I don't want to pull them out and 'do' them...but then when I give in, I remember that my children love them! Good for you - Ultimate Mom for stepping up and doing that thing you don't want - that is one of the beautiful things of Motherhood!

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