Cookies and Shrinky DInks.

Imagine the kids disappointment when they've been promised a trip to the beach but woke up to a rain. But apparently, once they heard "Let's bake some cookies", they forgot all about the beach and the rain.

And so we've made some vegan allergen-free chocolate chip cookies (for a 4yo who's allergic to milk and eggs) and some walnut puffs (also vegan, btw) for everyone else. From scratch. We used up all the flour, butter, nuts, colored sugar that we had in the house.
Oooh, yum yum. These melt in your mouth. I don't even mind setting the smoke alarm off. Something is wrong with this wax paper, it starts to smoke very fast...

Then the kids got another surprise treat - Shrinky Dinks. I collect the tops and bottoms from the take-out containers made from #6 plastic, and that's what we used. They got out Sharpies, drew some pictures, and, armed with a flashlight, set in front of the oven window watching their creations bubble and flatten again. They called it a "magic show" and were super impressed. And here's a little how-to, if you've never done shrinky dinks before.

Take a piece of #6 plastic (or a special shrinky dinks plastic sheet), cut it into a desired form. It should be 2:1 or 3:1 in size (meaning that the result will be 2 or 3 times smaller than the original). Don't worry about the colors being dull as they will get more vivid after "baking".

Bonus: If you have older kids, you can ask them to measure their shrinkies before and after and calculate how much they've shrunk. 

Decorate it using permanent markers. This is a picture of our cat as drawn by my 4yo daughter.

Put it on a sheet of aluminum foil and into a hot oven, 300-350F works fine.

Watch it carefully. The "baking" only takes a couple of minuted. Enjoy the "magic show".

Take it out as soon as it's flat. You have a few seconds to flatten it more before it cools down completely. You can use them as game tokens, or drill holes in them and make bag tags or necklaces.