Marshmallow week was so long ago now that I barely even have the desire to document it. But, so as not to ignore it completely, I'll do a picture-heavy version:
Levi and Owen traced their names with glue (well, I helped Owen) and then lined them with mini marshmallows. (Idea here.)
Meanwhile, Silas scooped mini marshmallows from one bowl to another using a tablespoon. He might have gotten one or two into the bowl instead of on the floor . . .
In the name of science, we experimented with dissolving colored marshmallows. The tall glasses on the left were filled with very warm water; the short glasses on the right, with cold water. You can only just start to see it in this picture, but the warm water really took on the colors of the marshmallows (pink and green), while the cold water stayed clear even after several hours. (Idea here.)
Owen used mini tongs to move marshmallows from plate to paper, counting to the number written on the mug. I think he got bored after mug #4, though.
Levi used tweezers instead, and we raced to see how many marshmallows he could move in ten seconds. It was harder than I expected: turns out the tweezers pinched the marshmallow enough to get sticky, and it was hard to get them to drop into the bowl without a helping finger.
We tried to build marshmallow towers, but they're very unevenly shaped, and nobody managed to do more than two (including myself).
Of course we had to build sculptures with toothpicks and mini marshmallows. Lots of fine motor practice this week! (Idea here.)
Later in the week, when Isaac was home in the afternoon, he and Levi made more elaborate constructions.
Naturally, we had to eat s'mores for marshmallow week!
Not crazy about the stickiness.
We made some puffy marshmallows with homemade puffy paint (using self-rising flour, salt, and water, then microwaving for thirty seconds). The boys painted them onto brown circles I cut out, suggesting (rather poorly) a mug of hot chocolate viewed from the top. (Idea and recipe here.)
It really does puff up!
It seemed only right that this be the week I try my hand at homemade marshmallows. I used this natural recipe, but I didn't really want to (potentially) waste a whole cup of maple syrup (which isn't cheap) if they didn't turn out. So instead, I made up a sugar syrup using sucanat. It worked fine, as far as making the marshmallows go, but I don't really like the taste of sucanat raw. (It's fine in baked goods, etc., but I don't like it for sweetening drinks or things where its flavor is strong.) It was interesting to try, fun to create something with the general texture of a store-bought marshmallow, but very few of them got eaten.
The pan of marshmallow waiting to be cut.
Rolling in powdered sugar to cut back on stickiness.
Trying them out . . . and brushing off the powdered sugar.
This has nothing to do with marshmallows, but at one point during the week, I caught Owen and Silas reading a book together. Between the two of them, they have nearly every page memorized, and it was so fun to hear them narrating the story together!
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