Ever wondered what kind of animal is pooing in your garden or park? Ever fancied having a chew on that poo… Well now you can with your very own Poo and Chew Chocolate Truffles!
Make Your Truffle Mix
There are lots of other recipes online if you are allergic to or don’t east any of these ingredients – or you can do this activity with clay or play doh if you don’t fancy having a chew on your poo.
Ingredients:
250g chocolate; 7 tbsp double cream; cocoa or sprinkles (optional).
Method:
- Break up the chocolate into small pieces and put it into a glass bowl
- Put the bowl of water over a saucepan of boiling water (younger children will need supervision)
- Stir occasionally until the chocolate has melted, then remove the. bowl from the saucepan.
- Add the double cream to the melted chocolate and mix them together
- Cover the bowl and place it in the fridge for about 45 minutes
Do some poo-y research
While your truffle mix cools in the fridge, have a think about what kinds of animals might be pooing in your area. Why might you want to identify animal poo? Sometimes animals can be shy, so the best way to know they have visited is from their poo!
Do you know what the poo of some different animals looks like? How about a rabbit? A dog? A fox? A horse? Does the size of the poo tell you anything about the size of the animal?
Decide on a couple of animals whose poo you would like to recreate in truffle form. You can look up what some different animal poos look like on the Wildlife Trusts website and the Discover Wildlife website. Both of these show animals you might find in the UK, if you live elsewhere in the world – or want to find out about the poo of some animals that do – you can search online for what their poo looks like. Other words for poo ‘skat’ or ‘droppings’ so these might be good words to search for.
Poo and Chew
Once your truffle mix has cooled, you can create some truffle poos. If you are. doing this with some other people, you could all keep secret which animal’s poo you are making and then try and guess what everyone has made.
Once you have made the poos of some real animals, why not let your imagination run wild and imagine what unicorn poo might look like? If you have some sprinkles or other decorations you could add those to the unicorn poo!
Once your poos are complete, put them in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm back up, then they are ready to eat! Or you can keep them in the fridge for up to a week.
Take it Further
If you enjoyed this activity you might like to try making a tiny cooker, or making your own homemade shampoo. You can also find out more about identifying things in nature with a game of Leaf Bingo.
