SMMART Art ideas on "Good Things Utah"

Thursday, April 8th

abc4 at 10:00 am

We're filming off site at a Pizza Parlor, of all places!

Be sure to watch!

SMMART Giveaway: "CHOCOMIZE"

(Giveaway Over-Thanks for entering!)

Winner (Be sure to e-mail me your mailing address):

Jeff.Shauna.Kason said...

My favorite mix in would be the Smore Bar! Looks yummy!

Shauna N

March 30, 2010 1:34 PM

Okay, break it down...CHOCOMIZE... "Chocolate" and "Customize"!

You got it! Create your own delectable, chocolate confectionary sensation!

(Can I use a few more exclamation points?! This is chocolate we're talking about here, folks!)

First, you choose the chocolate (dark, milk, or white). So, what ingredients can you imagine would create the most dreamy, delightful chocolate bar?
You name it, they've got it...Chocomize adds new ingredients regularly. They even have 23 carat Gold Flakes...and Easter candies!

"Chocomize" has over 100 different ingredients (that's over 10 billion possible chocolate customizable creations)!

Can you imagine a beautifully custom created chocolate bar as a favor at your wedding reception or baby shower?

(You can name your chocolate bar, customize lettering, and even put your own image/logo on the bar)

Besides letting you feeling like Charlie in your own chocolate factory, "Chocomize" lets you feel warm fuzzies when you check out. "Chocomize" allows you to choose a charity that 1% of all sales go towards (Action Against Hunger, Doctors Without Borders, or The Michael J. Fox Foundation).

...Birthday and Holiday gifts, Corporate events and gifts, Wedding and Baby shower favors...

Oh, and "Chocomize" even has a Chocolate of the Month Club and of course...

Gift Certificates!

There are three ways to enter the "Chocomize Giveaway Contest"

for a $25 gift certificate...

1) Go to www.Chocomize.com and leave a comment below telling me what your favorite CHOCOMIZE mix-in would be...be sure to leave your first name and last initial.

2) See my label cloud over on the right side of my SMMART blog? Click on "SMMART Math" to peruse the many SMMART Math activities. Leave a comment with your first name and last initial, telling me what SMMART Math activity you'd like to share with your child.

3) Become a follower of SMMARTideas or state that you are already a follower of SMMARTideas...be sure to leave your first name and last initial. (If you follow SMMARTideas, you'll be able to keep up on weekly SMMART learning activities.)

(Enter today March 30th, by midnight!!!!

Winner will be announced tomorrow, March 31st!)

(Open to residents in the United States of America)

OH, and of course, the SMMART Math component: Have your child help you add up the cost of the ingredients as you go along and see if they are correct at the check-out...little mathmeticians can just count up the number of ingredients that you add to the chocolate bar.

(almonds + dried mango + gummy bears =

3 ingredients)

SMMART MATH: Bake Me A Math Cake…

For Goodness Sake!

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Does your child ever beg you to bake cupcakes or a big ‘ol cake “for fun” with no birthday or special occasion? Periodically, my little 4 year old asks if we can make cupcakes…and now, you have the key ingredient to bake a little math into those sweets!

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After watching a pony cartoon about how all the ponies went crazy and added all kinds of sugary treats into a cake batter, my daughter talked on and on about trying this out for herself…and I have to say, despite my initial trepidation, the cakes turned out really tasty!

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So, gather up all the little treat you have around your house (Think of all the Easter candy coming soon):

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Chocolate Chips, Marshmallows, Sprinkles, Candy-coated Chocolates, sugar cubes (I didn’t say this was a healthy learning activity), Gumdrops, Dried Cranberries and other dried fruit pieces or nuts, Cereal pieces (we didn’t try this), and perhaps even a few drops of food coloring for fun.

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Help your child mix up a (box mix) cake batter and separate the batter into two pans. This way both of my children could customize their own cake flavors. If you’re going to make cupcakes, you can add the mix-ins while the batter is still in the mixing bowl.

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Be sure to let your child get involved in measuring out the ingredients to mix up the cake batter. They can even keep an eye on the clock to let you know when your two minutes of mixing is up.

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Yes, now you are going to let your child mix-in whatever little treats and sweets suit her fancy. But, first…she must earn her treats!

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Here are a few fun ways to incorporate MATH into your cakes:

- Pour a few chocolate chips into your child’s hand and ask her to ESTIMATE the number. Then count them up to see how close she was.

- Mix up a few of the treats and let your child SORT out the treats into their own piles.

- Ask your child to COUNT out 5 treats and drop them into the batter.

- Have your child use big sprinkles to COUNT by 2s, 3s or 5s, or to count by ODD or EVEN numbers.

- Help your child create an AB, AB, AB or an ABB, ABB, ABB…PATTERN with the different types of treats.

- Put a few marshmallows into one pile and a few into another and let your child count them (or estimate) and tell you which pile is GREATER THAN or LESS THAN the other pile.

- Lay a toothpick on the counter and let your child “MEASURE” the toothpick length by lining up marshmallows along side of it. How many marshmallows long is the toothpick?

- ADD: Hand your child 2 dried cranberries, then 2 more and say “2+2 equals?”

- SUBTRACT: Give your child 5 candy-coated chocolates and tell her to hand you one. Then say “5-1 equals?”

- MULTIPLY: Place six gumdrops on the counter in two rows of three. Then point at the three in the top row and then the two down the side “3 X 2 equals?” Line up 9 gumdrops in three rows of three and point as you say “3X3 equals?”

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After each exercise, let your child drop the well-earned treats into the batter. Give your child a bamboo skewer, straw or spoon to mix the treats into the batter. Throw the two cake pans into the pre-heated oven or spoon the batter into a cupcake lined pan and BAKE.

While your cakes are baking, your child can help you make this quick

Cream Cheese frosting:

1 8oz block of Cream Cheese at room temperature

Powdered Sugar to taste

Milk to desired consistency

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-FRACTIONS: Cut the block of Cream Cheese in half and explain to your child that there are now two halves. Cut each half so there are four pieces. Explain that the block is cut into fourths. Cut each fourth so you have 8 pieces and explain that the block is now cut into 8ths. (You can start by cutting the block into 3 pieces or thirds, then sixths…)

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Add in as much powdered sugar as you would like to taste. Add a little milk to make your icing a desired consistency.
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When your cakes cool, Let your child ice the cakes and add on a few more mix-ins on top and sprinkles for super-duper fun.

Serve ‘em up and Enjoy!

SMMART MATH ideas

on

"Good Things Utah"

March 30th

ABC4 at 10:00am

Be sure to enter a SMMART Chocolate Giveaway March 30th at www.MyGiveawayToday.com!

SMMART ART: Aromatic Artwork

Create your own scratch n' sniff artwork.

Mix a packet of flavored drink mix with 2Tb water

…and paint away until your olfactory senses are overloaded!

Love this idea!

(http://www.frugalfamilyfunblog.com/2009/02/scratch-n-sniff-painting.html)

SMMART SCIENCE: CANDY EXPERIMENTS!!!!!!

Seriously! Yes! Science and Candy soooo do mix...says me who's little 4 year old recently noticed my cavities and asked, "Mommy, what are those in your teeth?" But, never mind...CANDY!

Loralee at www.Candyexperiments.com has compiled quite a few fun ideas that she shares on her site and blog. The Rainbow Skittle Density Gradient that I previously posted about was found on her site...and we had a great time floating the "S"s off of Skittles too.

Educational and Yummy!

SMMART SCIENCE:

St. Patrick's Day Science Fun

Rainbow Density Gradient and Shinin' up yer Gold

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Skittles Rainbow Density Gradient

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"Taste the rainbow of fruit flavors..." Remember that marketing phrase? Well, This March 17th I really mean it! A skittle rainbow of fruit flavor, density gradient style...what else?

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There are actually many ways you can form this density gradient. Here's one way:

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You'll need:

A good size bag of skittles

5 cups

3 Tb of water per cup

clear drinking straw

-First have your little leprechaun count out the colored skittles and put them into piles...20 red skittles, 15 orange skittles, 10 yellow skittles, 5 green skittles and 1 purple skittle.

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-Now let your wee one help you put 3Tb of water into each cup. Place the 20 red skittles in one cup, the 15 orange skittles into another cup, the 10 yellow into a separate cup, the 5 green skittles into a different cup and the 1 purple skittle into the last cup.

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-Let the skittle candy colored coats dissolve. When the candy coats dissolve, you can spoon out the remaining centers (and eat em').

-Now you have 5 beautifully colored cups of water. Place the clear straw into the purple water and get a little in your straw, then cap the straw with your finger. Rest the straw into the next highest sugar dense water (green) and put your mouth over the straw and your finger to suck up just a teeny bit of the green water and cap it with your finger (tricky)...continue down the rainbow, collecting the next most dense colored water in the straw, until you have accomplished the feat of making your own density gradient rainbow captured in a straw. (Looks perty when you hold it up in front of a sunlit window.)

If you can't get the hang of the suck-up-the-colored-water-and-cap-it-with-your-finger step, then you can always try to delicately pour your rainbow gradient colors into a clear glass (most dense first to rest on the bottom=red) to create a lovely rainbow gradient in a glass. I cannot get the hang of this! (Check out the step by step at www.candyexperiments.com.)

Personally, I think the easiest way to achieve a density gradient in a straw is using food coloring and sugar in four different full cups of water. Each cup with a different food coloring contains 1 tsp, 2 tsp, 3 tsp and 4 tsp or sugar. Then you dip the straw into each cup of water, successively putting the straw into the next cup a little deeper each time. You can see this experiment with sugar-water and food coloring here.

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Use tall glasses so you can dip the straw deeper each time. I used 1 cup of water in each of the glasses...and I actually used the same amount of skittles as the way above instead of using teaspoons of sugar... (just more water-still works great, and dipping is easier than sucking up the water!)

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Apparently, you should be able to carefully pour each layer (most dense on the bottom) on top of each other to create a density gradient in a glass...but I have tried so many times and haven't got the skills to accomplish such a feat. I won't be too hard on myself...my talents lie elsewhere.

Shinin' up yer Gold...with ketchup!

Now what else would the fair people of Ire' land be using on their Haggis, but a hearty helpin' of...Ketchup!

(Never mind that Haggis is actually Scottish!-I just like the sound of it...Haggis! I think I'll get me some Haggis!)

Find some pennies that are tarnished and could use some sparkle.

Have yer little person squirt a plop of ketchup onto a plate, then place a few pennies on top, and squirt more ketchup on top for good measure. Let the pennies sit for a minute or two.

Let your little one squish and rub the pennies around in his little leprechaun fingers to polish up the coins. Rinse them off and you'll have shiny pennies!

The tarnish on an old penny is copper oxide. When it mixes with the vinegar in the ketchup, the vinegar and copper oxide combine to form copper acetate. Copper acetate dissolves in water and washes right off, leaving shiny coins to stash at the end of the rainbow.

(http://www.theteacherscorner.net/lesson-plans/science/experiments/ketchup.htm)

You could also try shinin' up yer pot of gold with lemon juice, hot sauce, cola, vinegar...and see what shines 'em up the best. Contrast and compare!

Check out the "Good Things Utah" video segment.