Spring Break painting...

During spring break the boys went to the craft store to buy something to make during their week off of school. They choose a bunch of wooden creations to paint and make their very own. They spent several days painting and so far this is where they've left off. I'm not sure the projects are complete but they have not painted them since they've been back in school.

These are Oliver's treasure boxes.

And these are Lucius' bird houses and treasure box.

deconstruction...

A few weeks before school started the boys and I sat down to do a "dangerous thing". We have a book that has "50 dangerous things (you should let your kids do)" and Oliver's been reading it all summer. I had a few appliances that were broken/ don't work anymore, so I figured we use them to do #34 : deconstruct an appliance.

The boys were super excited and we started right away on the vacuum. 

Once we got the vacuum apart and saw all its guts, we were excited to take the CD player apart. Unforunately we didn't have the right tool (a super long screwdriver) so we weren't able to take it apart. 

Then the boys used the pieces to tinker and build other things out of them. 

They can't wait till they're allowed to do more dangerous stuff.

Make a Mess Monday

Technically it's been about seven months since our last Make a Mess Monday. How can that be? That's crazy. Yesterday was a Monday and we just happened to do a little painting after we got home from Target. I had just purchased a new set of paints while shopping and was planning to let the boys paint later in the week. But since we had time to kill before dinner, I brought out a big canvas I had and we started painting.

First it didn't start out messy. We had one little paint brush that the Little Misters were taking turns sharing. At one point Oliver excitedly stated that we were doing "make a mess Monday" and it hit me- why limit them... lets get messy!

At first it was just one finger in the paints but that wasn't working the greatest. So I dumped the paint into the palms of their hands. Lucius was totally ready to use his fingers, and then his whole hand. He was making lovely hand prints in the paint. Oliver, who is usually more timid about getting messy, dived right into using his hands to paint with.  During our painting time I heard Oliver state "oh, we're making a mess, but that's okay- we can always clean things up later".  Awesome- this little idea is working!

 

Now we're talking... make a mess boys! 

 

The final result of an evening of mess making:

Make a Mess Monday: Pumpkin Carving

One of my LEAST favorite things: sticky hands and gooey pumpkin yuck. But I attempted to enjoy carving this little pumpkin with the Little Misters. I see a lot of my quirks in my son and hope that I haven't ruined him for life. He refused to use his hands, not that I can really blame him- I only used my hand once to get a big chunk of goop. {It took all my will power not to get up and wash my hand afterward. I know, I know...}

We managed to finish cleaning out the pumpkin and then Oliver got to draw the face. He actually did a pretty great job making a few lines that I could use for the eyes, nose and mouth. He was super happy with it.

Happy Halloween everyone!

a Make a Mess Monday in video

Oliver's running commentary (if you can't understand him) while painting goes something like this:

"I'm just curious. Lucius is curious too. NO, Lucius is crazy. 

But I'm curious and you're curious too."

Make a Mess Monday

I found a big old bag of wooden clothes pins in our basement
and used it for a little craft project with Oliver.

Step One: get the supplies ready and pick your brush.

Step Two: Mix, stir, make a mess with major concentration.

Step Three: Show off your creations and call it a wrap.

Make a Mess Monday

We had wet and wild water fun in the bath tub today. Oliver was going to "wash dishes" in the kitchen sink but I thought Lucius might like to join in the activity. Afterward, Lucius took a very brief rest while Oliver and I dug into the play dough. 

Make a Mess Monday

With so many of these Felt Flag Banners I been making, I have a lot of scraps. I'm not one to throw away something that might find a purpose later on. While brainstorming activities and crafts for Oliver, I remembered the scraps. We pulled out several colors in various shapes, a bottle of glue and an old manila envelope.

Oliver glued the felt pieces all over this envelope and created his first, of what I'm sure will become many, textured mosaics. My idea/ goal would be to design and package "make a mess Monday" kits. Using some of the projects Oliver and I have come up with and the scraps of materials I use in my own crafts, I could put together pretty cool little art kits.

Could you see the kits changing a young person's life? Introducing art in an easy, "all you need to get started is right there" kind of way, without photos of what it should look like when completed because that's up to each child's imagination. If you'd have asked me before having kids- I would not have thought art was all that important to teach young children. As you might have guessed, I have changed my mind. I see all kinds of positive benefits and impressions our "make a mess Monday" sessions have made on Oliver.

Make a Mess Monday

This little dragon and I made a mess this afternoon while making a treasure box. We cut up an old gift bag that had handles and used some tape to secure it to the cardboard box.

Tonight, while hanging out with Daddy, we showed him our creation. We've discovered a very fun new game to play together "treasure hunting". We filled the box with a random toy and hid the box. Oliver had a TON of fun finding the treasure, but wasn't able to keep it much of a secret when it was his turn to hide the box.

"Its in the kitchen, Daddy" as he points the way.
In the video, Oliver was showing me where he hid the treasure.

completely the opposite

On Make a Mess Monday while Oliver was playing in the water at our kitchen sink, "washing dishes and his animals" with bubbles...

Marmee was cleaning out & organizing a couple of kitchen cupboards and the "junk" drawer so that they now look a little more like this.

Make a Mess Monday

We started this project back in June, it's now August and we can finally decorate our paper mache. We've been adding a couple of layers of goop and paper over the last weeks. I think we had three different Mondays to play in the flour & water mixture (which drys up hard as a rock).

Oliver used his scissor to help cut the tissue paper. We used a whole 4 ounce bottle of glue attaching all this color. After putting a piece of crunched up tissue on our pinata Oliver would clap. It was so awesome how much fun he was having. I think we spent over an hour today working on our project. His love of all things simple is infectious- I love it!

While we work on this project we've talked about the party we'll have once it's finished. Oliver makes a list of all the people he'd like to invite. So in five years when we've officially completed our project, you can come to our pinata party!