Milking "Cows"

The second activity we did to go along with How to Make an Apple Pie and see the World was to milk cows (our first was Collecting Salt from Salt Water). No we don't have dairy cows or even know anyone who does, so we had to make some cows.

I started with some latex gloves (with the thumb taped down) and filled them with a very diluted solution of white paint.

I then hung them under a folding table with a bowl underneath. Using a needle I made small holes in the fingertips of the glove; I tried to swirl the needle around a little to make the holes a bit bigger but not so big the water just flows out.

Then I showed the girls how to milk their cow by squeezing and pulling on each glove finger. They really enjoyed this and went through a few gloves each before we decided to stop and measure the amount of milk we got.

Once they we're finished I had them each poor their milk into a measuring cup and read me how much they had. This was good practice in reading measurements for them. Too bad it wasn't real milk, so we could make our own butter again (Kid-Made Butter)!