Shark Week, Day 3

I woke up today, and I really barely had the mental energy to acknowledge Shark Week. For whatever reason I just wasn't into it. But, the show must go on! Or so they say. And the kids have been so excited over it, how could I say no?

We didn't have a science experiment today, but we did do a lengthly craft. I stripped the boys down to old basketball shorts (because, paint) and took them outside to paint a paper plate blue. While it dried, they took a second (white) paper plate and cut the middle out to make it look like shark teeth. Once the paint on the blue plate was dry, the boys drew and cut out sea creatures, talking about what sharks would manage to eat (whether on purpose or not) on a day to day basis. They glued the creatures to the blue plate, and then I stapled the white teeth on top. 

Viola! 3D shark mouth! This project was a long process, but I would consider it a grand success. 

Calen's shark had seals, eels, fish and seaweed

Cam's shark had a seal, an eeel, a worm, a tiny fish and seaweed

Luckily, I did a little prep work yesterday for their special snack. I happened upon a box of blue Jello in the pantry, so I quickly made it and cooled it overnight. Then this morning, I filled the bottom of two small Mason jars with mini sweet tart bites (because Nerds weren't available where I looked...dumb) to make it look like aquarium rocks. Then, I dumped one jar of cooled jello into the mason jar on top of the candy and let it settle, and finally took a knife to cut a few slits in the jello and stuck Swedish fish inside, and shark fruit snacks on top to make it look like an aquarium. 

Obviously, major sugar overload and not something I'd let them eat on a daily basis, and they only had maybe 3 bites of jello each (after digging out all the candy....turds). But it was fun for a rare occasion. 

And that was it really. They watched an hour or so of Shark Week on TV and we called it a day. 

Tomorrow is the last day of the Hansen's Shark Week, because I'm running out of supplies and Pinterest ideas, but it has definitely been well worth sorting it all together for a week of crafty overload. 

Shark Week, Day 2

We had a lot of crap to do today. Doctors appointments, school clothes shopping (can kids PLEASE stop outgrowing shoes overnight??), and I worked in the evening. But, it didn't stop us from doing a quick little bit of Shark Week. 

Today's experiment was super quick and didn't work as planned. The idea is to fill one balloon with water, and one with oil. You drop them in a pail of water to see which sinks or floats. This teaches that most sharks float (because their skeletons are made of cartilage, not bone), but some sharks like nurse sharks actually sink to the bottom. 

Unfortunately, I think I got too much air in each balloon, because both ended up floating, albeit one was trying to sink. But, the kids got the idea, and we followed it up with a simple weight comparison to really feel the difference between bone and cartilage. But since I don't happen to have skeletons in my closet and cartilage in the cupboards, I used a heavy metal spatula to represent a bone, and a straw to represent cartilage. 

After that quicky experiment, we went right to the art project. This was another Pinterest winner that was stupid simple. The kids used glue sticks to put down various shades of blue tissue paper to make a stained glass type ocean, and then add silhouettes of sharks (that I cut out because both boys were getting frustrated at cutting their own). 

Cam chose great whites again, and Calen added a "dead fish" to the middle of his hammerheads. 

The end. Super fun and simple, but it was time consuming so it engaged them for a while. 

Today's snack was superbly awesome, in a torture your kids type of way awesome. I chose an accurate taste of what sharks like to eat: sardines. 

Okay so maybe sharks don't pop open cans of sardines and snack on them. Neither do most Americans. But it was fun I couldn't wait for their reactions. 

For extra effect, I made a shark mouth out of Bugles. Because of course I did. 

I managed to catch the moment that perfectly depicts how the boys liked the sardines. Calen is licking his lips because he liked it, Camden is angry that I made him try it. 

Brilliance. 

Calen even ended up making "stuffed crab shells", in which he stuffed sardines inside the Bugles. He convinced me to try one, and it's strangely delicious. 

And that was really the end of it for the day. We found a few more shark documentaries on Amazon Prime and they played Lego submarines and sharks basically all day. 

 

Shark Week, Day 1

When summer vacation started (and spring baseball ended at the same time), I asked the boys if they wanted to play flag football, which to my surprise both opted out of. Which means, an entire summer with no obligations whatsoever (other than the occasional swim lessons for the 6 year old, because life skills and water safety and all that baloney). 

So I declared that I was going to use all that free time to blow through some 475 Pinterest projects that I've pinned for the last 5 years or so. I've got time! I've got nothing but time! Let's burst out those glue sticks and glitter and get cracking!

4 weeks later, and summer is half over, and I'm like, shit! We've barely done any!

Coincidentally, next week is celebrated Shark Week on Discovery channel, which if you know my boys is the equivalent of saying that Christmas is around the corner. But, since we don't have cable anymore and they are going to be at VBS next week, we declared this week Shark Week. And I have a solid dozen Pinterest pins to use up for the occasion!  

We met a Lego man dressed as a shark last week at Legoland. It was a sign. 

Today was "Day 1" of Shark Week. My overachieving goal was to have a science experiment, a craft and a snack related to it. You know not just throwing on shark documentaries on Netflix and calling it good. We have Pins to use dammit! 

They're ready. I even found a pin to make Shark Hats

Today's science experiment was learning about ocean layers. I found this brilliant-yet-fairy-easy project here (on Pinterest, because obviously). It took a little bit of prep work, so the kids played Lego Shark Awesomeness versus Scuba Man Bob (some of you from my childhood MUST remember Lego Scuba Man Bob) while I did the prep:

To start, you collect 5 containers and fill them with various types of liquids and dyes (as stated on the website, which you can look up yourself, because I don't feel like retyping what liquid you dye what). Liquids included common household items, like water, and cooking oil, dish soap, rubbing alcohol, and corn syrup. I had to buy the corn syrup for this experiment, because who the hell keeps corn syrup around?!

All of the zones, before we poured them in

Then, the kids and I poured the different "layers" into the jar. It's important to follow the directions and pour the right liquid in the right order, or else they will mix. As we poured in each layer (going from deepest ocean layer - trench -, so the closest to the surface - sunlight -), we discussed just how far down it was, and what types of sealife lived in it. I did a bit of a Pinterest-Fail and dyed the two deepest layers too similarly dark, so it was hard to decipher between the two unless you held it up to a light. But otherwise, it turned out pretty awesome. The kids loved the photos of the creepy ass sea critters that live in the darker zones (thanks, Google images) and was interested to know that Hammerhead sharks prefer the Twilight zone, while most of the rest of the sharks live in the Sunlight zone. 

Ocean zone jar! You can't really tell, but the Trench Zone on the bottom is black, and the Abyss Zone is purple. 

Then of course, Lego Shark Awesomeness took over the zone jar. Even Batman was prepared, on the surface. I was surprised at how engaged the kids were with this experiment, even after it was over. 

Note: this isn't something you like, keep around. After a couple hours the liquids slowly started to spill into each other. I'm not even sure I want to keep the jar, because who wants to clean out dyed corn syrup? Not me. 

After the excitement of the experiment wore off, I found some shark documentaries on Netflix (it's called..."Shark". Well that was easy) while I cleaned up and made lunch. And because it's Shark Week, we had to have a themed lunch. So, bologna and cheese sandwich islands with Bugle palm trees (but I wasn't so ambitious as to find something green and leafy for the plans, so they were dead palm trees), blueberry coral reefs and shark fruit snacks. Oh and an octopus gummy. Because of course. 

The craft for the afternoon was a newspaper shark. Not super exciting, but it was cute on Pinterest, stupid simple and the kids loved it.

It was as simple as having the kids cut out the shape of a shark head out of newspaper (that I got for $1 yesterday at the grocery store, since no one actually has newspaper floating around their houses anymore). Calen chose a hammerhead shark and Camden did a great white. Then, they glued their shark heads to light blue construction paper, glued on some googly eyes, and cut out/added a black mouth and white teeth. Once their shark was finished, they cut out dark blue "waves" and glued it on top of the bottom of the shark. 

Done, done and done. Shark Week Day 1 in the books. All 3 of us had fun. 

Calen's hammerhead shark (with "splashing water") and Camden's great white. Excuse the poor lighting, it was dark when I realized I forgot to take a picture. 

Bonus round: we went to the pool afterwards, which seems like it should be a part of shark week. Also they had been inside all day and it was time for them to get out of my face for an hour.