Lite-Brites in the Dark

It was a very calm and quiet Wednesday morning. We usually have 5 kids here, but this morning it was just Jack and Luke.

They turned the lights off in the bedroom, closed the curtains, and played with the Lite-Brites in the dark. Unfortunately, when I took the picture with the flash, it didn't look a bit dark . . .

. . . and then without the flash, this is all I got:

Boys' Fort

The boys spent this morning building and playing in a fort in the nice, quiet, and dark bedroom . . . spooky!

Boys in the Morning . . . Boys in the Afternoon

In the morning, Gabriel, Matthew, and Luke built an elaborate construction using both blocks and dominoes.

After school, Iain and Jack set up their camp around the swingset and made slingshots, amongst other things, out of tape, paper, and string.

New Hot Gluing . . . Take Two

This morning the boys discovered the new hot gluing supplies (though Iain of course knew this yesterday) and spent the entire morning creating.

Water Globes and Melted Wax Painting

Now we begin week 2 of the renewed blog . . . there's so much to report! As the kids arrived this morning, the posted planned activities were:

This Week
At Children’s Garden
January 26-30
*Heart Collage Valentines
*Melted Wax Painting
*In the Garden- Weeding around Bird Bath

But first, the water globes are ready and going home! What seemed like a fun and simple project ended up being extremely complicated. As I glued the lids on, they were not completely watertight, but the glue took so fast that I couldn't unscrew them to fix them! Sven then used silicone caulking along the edges -- twice! -- and this took several days to cure. So here are a few photos of some of the waterglobes.

Some chose a woodland scene with deer and evergreen trees . . .

. . . some chose oceanic themes with either whale heads or tails and a blue tint to the water . . .

. . . and then Lucas clever combined the two themes by using a whale head, blue tinted water, and a "Christmas tree" decorated, appropriately enough, with tiny seashell ornaments. It turned out rather lovely.

So today we started our melted crayon painting experiment. It started with an old mini-muffin pan and a whole bunch of old broken crayons in a variety of colors.

They spent some time in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit . . .

. . . and soon started melting into little wax pools . . .

. . . and then were placed onto an electric griddle to be kept warm. Cotton swabs were used as disposable paintbrushes.

Nicholas, Luke, and Gabriel were the first to try it out, and it was a great success.