Sunday, September 12, 2010

Footprints

Our friends who lived on the lake invited us to come over and take plaster casts of animal prints. Their lake is being drained so the dam can be fixed. They now have about 6 feet of "extra beach". All the critters from far and near were coming and feasting on the crawfish and frogs that got stranded above the water line. They have found mink prints, coon prints, dog and cat prints, and gull and heron prints.

So first we had to find some good clear prints.

Next we mixed up the plaster of paris.

Then we carefully poured the plaster into our plastic ring.

While we were waiting for the plaster to set, our friend had made up several animal track quizzes and lake facts for the children to guess at. And what could be more fun than water based refreshments. We had cupcakes with blue frosting and gummy fish, seaweed (green tinted ramen noodles), and blueberry grunt (with lilypad bisquits).

From left to right: Gull, Raccoon (front and back), Cat, and Dog.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow...this sounds like so much fun! What a great little unit study!

~ Betsy

Technoprairie said...

It was a great time. We had made plaster casts a long time ago and the children had forgotten. It was a fun day.

timekeeper said...

Sounds like a great chance for them!