Mother's Day

What? Mother's Day? Wait, what month are we in? Oh, that's right, June. Dang it.

Just kidding... much as I'd love to be lauded and celebrated all over again tomorrow, I also love celebrating these great papas in the world, and I just happen to be married to one of the best ever. I thought I'd share the co-creation he made for me with the kids last month... I thought it was SO funny and charming and heart-melting, and any of y'all are welcome to borrow the idea if you'd like to make a father's day Mad Lib for a special papa in your life.

Egg-drop challenge, making ice cream, and love from my graduates.

An egg drop challenge is a great way to use up mungo... and kids get SO excited about it. Let them raid the recycling bin and go to town designing a missile sturdy enough to protect their egg when dropped from a great height.

We also dissected a typewriter, made homemade ice cream (which makes children do a dance of joy on a hot day, or any time, really...), and worked more on our houses. Someone just really needed to install a tether ball in their living room...

We also celebrated everyone's graduation from tinkering class and strongly advised everyone to go to Maker Faire in the fall, continue to tinker in the months to come, and see you all next summer!

Happy campers

We made these ultra simple dollhouses today... or, y'know, forts or batcaves or whatever you prefer... I don't want to turn off any boys in the audience, though none of these boys seemed the slightest bit phased... and one had a dungeon and a mummy, that was pretty cool. One person also had a tire swing in the bedroom, and another had a swimming pool in the kitchen... it was SO FUN to see what they dreamed up and designed and built. This might not seem that tinker-y but this was really the direction that I wanted to move in... just an open-ended project with total freedom to make and create. And some people also installed a real working light or lamp.

I really would like to have a whole class around this in the fall... build a dollhouse or fort with working light and doorbell, with great people and all wonderful tiny food and dishes and appliances, the works... this was always my dream when I was little... it's so thrilling to create a whole complete tiny world...

Oh yes, that makes me remember the ultimate dollhouse that I used to visit when I was a kid... this completely bizarre wonderland with a bowling ball garden, three-headed mannequin, and a goat that lived in the back of a pink Studebaker... outside of Bend, Oregon of all places, it was a junk shop/antique store that had an enormous dollhouse with a real working TV set that played Wizard of Oz on a loop. It had all these grounds that you could wander for absolutely free and all this wierd and wonderful imaginings come to life from the mind of owner and proprietor Gene Carsey, and it was home to all sorts of retired farm animals, the horses that were bound for the glue factory and the 2 legged cats.... Once known as Buffet Flat, now reborn as the Funny Farm, and survives against all odds and the city of Bend doing everything in its power to shut it down for years and years and years... wow, I feel so blessed that I got to visit that place at least once a year when I was growing up. I'm returning to Oregon in a couple of weeks... I'll have to make a pilgrimage out there and show it to my kids. Rock on, Gene Carsey, real true tinkerer and maker supremo.

Tinkering camp

Two days into tinkering camp and we're still all about paper airplanes, but we've also done secret treasure boxes with an alarm inside to ward off snoopers, taken apart loads of remote control cars and (most excitingly) a cash register, made blinky bugs and marshmallow shooters and obstacle courses of mud pits and rope swings...not sure if the next three days can possibly measure up, but... we'll just do our darndest to meet or exceed expectations!

Tinkering camp only comes once a year, you know....

More camp

Kid-made blueberry popsicles, marbled paper, and boat-creating out of a huge batch of beautiful wood scraps I got from a guitar maker... yeah, it was a pretty good day.

More fun at camp

Picnics in the fort, homemade card games, and lots and lots of swimming and frolicking.

I didn't manage to snap a picture of the copious paper airplanes, origami, and carpentry that has also been going on.

Bookmaking camp!

These kids are AWESOME! And we had so much fun. We made these 'instant books' that I think are absolutely brilliant. I'll have to put a tutorial up about them sometime. I just LOVE see what they dream up when confronted with the blank page... they dive in without hesitation. I'm really looking forward to a week of pens and paper and scissors and glue with this crew.