Hurricane Dorian. Heard of it?

She has really put a hiccup in my plans for this week. Honestly, my plans for this month.

We evacuated… and now it feels like it will be forever until we get back home.

If I’m completely bored and ready to get back to life, I know my boys for sure are too.

We have wonderful friends in North Georgia who have opened their home to us… so that means it’s time to bake. I need to pay for my keep right… 🙂

Anytime I can get kids in the kitchen I do, and love that their 8 year old daughter wanted to join in on the baking fun. There is so much science and math that goes into baking that it is one of my absolutely favorite activities to do with them.

I decided to keep it simple by simply having them mix colors in pre-made cookie dough. Yes, you could totally have them make their own cookie dough, but this is just as good an much easier. Also gives you a great conversation about how to make certain colors. Orange is easy, but brown… how do you make brown?

Divide the dough into three separate bowls with color. Have them mix the colors. We picked fall colors since it is the beginning of September, and fall is my absolute favorite.

While the cookies were baking all the kids went through our TinkerActive workbooks. I am so happy we had these to keep them busy. They are ideal for when the power goes out too. Finding the perfect ways to tinker and keep their little minds busy.

TinkerActive Workbooks tap into play based learning, project-based learning, and tinkering. The books are filled with fun activities that get the kids focused on how things work and discovering that for themselves. These are critical thinking skills that they need for school and interacting with others.

A TinkerActive Workbook typically retails for $12.99 and can be found where ever books are sold.

You can also buy them online here.

I love letting my little ones get dirty while baking too. It all ties perfectly together.

Perfect autumn cookies that took a total of 15 minutes to make, that’s a great 15 minutes of quality time laughing, talking and tinkering.

One activity that the kids were itching to try was card stacking.

The important thing with this is trial and error. The table was clearly too slick, but they kept going.. until they realized maybe the carpet was a better option.

Does anyone else love watching when a lightbulb turns on? With kids I mean?

Why do you think it works on the carpet and not on the table?

What will make them fall over?

How tall can you make it?

If I had recommended card stacking there is a good chance it would have been a hard pass. But since they saw it in the TinkerActive Workbooks, it was their choice. I was just along for their ride. Which was awesome.

Of course during all of their hard work we need to stop and grab a cookie or three.

Want to become a hero? Add a little vanilla ice cream between two warm cookies.

Now, this is what I call a Hurricane party.

What are some ways you like to keep your kids calm during a rainy day?