Home Economics-Dog Biscuits

After giving the kids a month off, it was time to get our little homeschool academy up and running again! The kids put in a concerted effort Tuesday morning, so we decided to take a well-deserved break from bookwork and delve into what I like to call "practical chemistry and home economics"! The fact is, the dogs were out of treats and we don't put the dogs in kennels without treats. We also need the treats for training purposes. And sadly, dog biscuits were NOT in my grocery budget this go around. So what do you do when you need the dog biscuits but your budget doesn't allow it? You pull up a recipe online and make them with your kids! After all, dog biscuits are made with things normally found in your pantry like flour, oats, and in our case peanut butter!

First you preheat your oven and mix all the ingredients. I allowed the kids to measure everything out (taking the opportunity to discuss fractions of course!). Once mixed, we rolled out the dough and the kids started cutting out the individual biscuits.
And yes, in case you were wondering, we do occasionally cook in our underwear here!

As you can see, we made quite a lot of biscuits! Thank goodness we only made a 1/2 batch!
We popped them in the oven and waited.
While in the oven we discussed mixtures and chemical changes due to heat. Once done, we shook them off the pan and let them cool on a wire rack and observed how they had changed. And yes, those are squirrel-shaped biscuits because the kids thought it would be really funny since the dogs are always trying to get at that pesky squirrel who taunts them from the fence!
We also took some time after it was all said and done to determine the cost effectiveness of making our own biscuits vs. buying pre-made ones. We made approximately 200 dog biscuits for $0.86 vs. $3.99 for a comparable sized bag of regular flavor Petsmart Grreat Choice biscuits or $11.99 for peanut butter flavored Mother Hubbard Biscuits. So not too bad! And the recipients of said treats didn't complain a bit!