June 20 - Cardboard toy shop

Today's morning activity was Cardboard Toy shop, where I make toys with the kids out of recycled cardboard and duct tape. School ends next week, and for their "spirit week" one day is Crazy Sock Day. And this year, ladies and gentlemen, Zephyr and Lyric will be the CROWN PRINCES OF CRAZY SOCK DAY. So today, we'll be making them crowns.  

Step 1) half of a deconstructed box left in the recycling bin

Step 2) trim cardboard to long strip

Step 3) cut crenellations and fold down longer flaps

"Crenellations"  are the little projections at the top of a castle. Props to my Kindergarten teacher Darlene Freeman for teaching me that. 

Step 4) Fold along the grain of the cardboard to create castle shape

Step 5 involves sizing the shape to the child's head size. No pictures of that, yet, but here's what the rough prototype was looking like before we left for school: 

Work in progress. I have crazy crazy socks I'm looking to unload.  

SELFGRADE: A-. That castle shape is going to be big for the kids, I can feel it. These will served double duty as fashion and toy. Recycling!

May 20 - Cardboard Toy Shop

With Mumsie here this morning, the kids were too occupied with her to want to do a morning activity. So they had Mumsie time instead.  

Mumsie plays Spot It with Lyric. She also taught Zephyr how to play Crazy Eights.

I had been busy with a craft project of my own all week (preparing a party based on HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, complete with a glowing Necronomicon and spell cards)  so I gladly sat back and watched. More next week. 

April 21 - Action Figure Epic (cancelled)

Today was supposed to be Action Figure Epic, where I play toys with the kids and plot out an adventure for them, but once again (like last month) it didn't come together. Playing with toys as an adult is actually very hard, and coming up with a compelling story for action figures is a lot of pressure. I've done it well before and I intend to do it again, but today it wasn't coming to me.

It might have been more pressing if the kids weren't acting so darn cute and creative this morning on their own. I found Zephyr reading "If you give a pig a pancake" to his younger brother this morning, and I mean, that's the sort of precious moments you want in a Hummel figurine or something.

For real, this is the sort of reason to have more than one kid. It's like a ridiculous amount of work to get to this place, but then one day you find yourself there and you're like "yeah".

And then they wanted to continue work on yesterday's Cardboard Toy Shop Pokèmon display case/battle arena/castle, so we did more there, using duct tape to give it a quick and easy paint job.

Yes there is a fruit bowl-type Pokémon. Shut up. Still to come: Sharpie detailing.

So kind of a bust on today's activity but a sweet continuation of yesterday's. Works for me.

April 20 - Cardboard Toy Shop

HYPOTHESIS: Kids can make their own toys out of recycled materials from around the house.

PROCEDURE: Zephyr and Lyric have been swept up in POKEMON FEVER, and today for Cardboard Toy Shop Zephyr wanted to make a house for the modeling clay pokemon figures he's been making.

Some of the modeling clay Pokemon Zephyr and Lyric have been making. I'm not sure on the names, but they all have 'em. The one in the front is a bird of some kind, and the rainbow one that kind of looks like a Cronenbergian ear mite was made by Lyric.

The project would be based on a cardboard box, and made out of a cardboard box. The problem with just using a cardboard box, however, is that we'd want to decorate the outside of the box. So I disassembled the box and reassembled it inside out, held together by tape.

Before.

After.

Now we'll have a blank canvas to draw on, probably with sharpies and tape.

While I was doing this, the kids were making more Pokémon. "Pokémon", incidentally, I believe is the correct plural form of "Pokémon".

We ran out of time to actually start decorating the box this morning, but we'll do that over the next few days.

RESULTS: Ask me again when I'm absolutely sick of Pokémon, but it felt pretty good this morning. At least it will be a place to put their tiny sculptures!