Summer Creativity

We are only a few days into summer vacation and already the kids are making good use of their time. I'm proud of how creative they are.

Before I was even out of bed, they were telling me that we needed to make "fizzy balls." I had never heard of such things, but Calvin had a youtube tutorial he'd found.

They were taking the experiment very seriously. They had protective lenses, measuring cups, and vinegar (and Listerine which they thought was another kind of vinegar) ready to go.

First we mixed the water with baking soda:

 Measuring:

 Mixing:

Then he smashed his little angry bird and sonic toys inside the balls:

 When they were packed tightly, they were ready to bake. We put them in the oven for an hour (kind of long for a dumb kids' experiment, if you ask me, since the baking soda and vinegar react the same way without the baking--but the baking keeps the toys locked inside the fizzy ball). They thought it was brilliant though. I think putting it into the oven added some legitimacy to their scientific process.

While the fizzy balls baked, we tried alka seltzer tablets in soda. 

And then we exploded the fizzy balls in vinegar. It was kind of fun. It made a mess and he was excited to find his prizes inside, unharmed by the "explosion."

Then Calvin made the entire Pac-man line-up with play dough while Autumn made cakes with every shade of pink of purple she could find.

After play dough, he wanted to paint boxes for his angry birds. Brown=dirt, grey=rock, blue=ice. 

 They spent about three hours painting boxes. I was super impressed by their long attention spans with all of their activities today, and I'm glad they weren't whining about watching tv or being bored. Hopefully they'll be this motivated all summer long.

Tonight I had study group so the babysitter put Calvin to bed. When I came home and checked on him, he was asleep wearing his Link hat. The picture is blurry, but I thought it was darling. He's such an imaginative little guy.

(TRUTH: I didn't really have my writing group tonight. We all went to a writing conference a few weeks ago, and since then, we all seem burned out and sick of each other. It was so much work to get our stuff ready for that conference, that now we all just want a break. I told them I only have two more weeks that I can come anyway before my sister's wedding and the baby being born, so we all decided to take a break. BUT the kids love the babysitter, so Andy and I sneaked off together. To McDonald's. Where we had a smoothie inside while we worked for an hour, and then we went out to the car. We then spent the next couple of hours watching Arrested Development and doing crosswords together. And had a hot fudge sundae. All sitting in the backseat of our car in the McDonald's park lot. Lame, I know. But this is why I fell in love with him. We enjoy each others' company, even if we're doing the most boring things ever. It was a fun, impromptu date night.)