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.

Consuming Kids

As I mentioned before, this film is going to be screened here in Austin and they've asked me to be on the panel after the film. Eek! OK, I'm totally nervous. They said it was basically sold out but if you really really REALLY want to go, email them and they'll let you know if someone cancels. This Saturday, June 13th, 4 pm at the Hideout on Congress. The info can be found here.

Making a flower press

For our last carpentry class, a really sweet summer project that will hopefully be pretty fun for them to work with, especially in these early days of summer when the flora of Central Texas is still pretty lush and blossom-y.

If you'd like to make a flower press, with or without your kid, instructions can be found here.

Today we...

... painted with paintsicles (after making pesto pasta and mango lassis) in cooking class. I felt kind of guilty introducing this activity to the toddlers. It seems kind of cruel... the popsicles look so delicious and vibrant. Luckily Henry and Moses had a good time playing with them. They didn't seem to resent it too much that the popsicles weren't edible.


And I just had to throw this picture in at the end, of Bruno in our outdoor shower sitting in a gigantic cooking pot. Why is he sitting in it?!?! Couldn't tell ya. Bruno stew, anyone?

Much goings-on

Summer vacation is a whole 6 days old and I have to say it's been pretty good so far. Today was a little off with a lot of fighting and compulsive baby-squishing by my younger son (which makes me see red like nothing else) but all in all.. we've been having a lot of fun. We got the croquet set out and played a bit of croquet before getting all involved in building interesting miniature-golf type challenges. My mom always told me that my grandpa, who was really a tinkerer extraordinaire, built a miniature golf course in their backyard one summer. I have to ask my mom more about that. I might float the idea with my tinkering camp kids and see if they'd like to build one in my backyard, too.

We also worked on building a go-cart/cycling contraption out of some spare parts I've been collecting... also on the tinkering camp agenda... if you have any junky old strollers or beat up old bicycles you'd like to donate to the cause, I'll come pick 'em up gladly!

Also, Matt is building a roof and some other awesome accoutrements onto our fort... you gotta come over and check it out, it is tres tres cool.


Lastly but not leastly, homemade water slides... quick, cheap, easy... if you have a slide and a kiddie pool, combine! Combine!

Stomp rocket

You know these things? You can buy 'em, but they're oh-so-easy to make. What's not so easy, is getting a real photo that demonstrates what is happening, so I'll tell you: they stomp the bottle and the burst of air causes the rocket on the end of the pipe to shoot up in the air surprisingly high, usually eliciting much excitement and laughter from the little ones. You can find the instructions here, at this great website, www.sciencetoymaker.com.