Challenges and Art Projects

Sometimes it's a struggle to keep the kids occupied in the summer.  They've done their chores, played all their games, read books, watched movies, and now they're whining about being bored, sitting in front of the Wii for way to long, or fighting like cats and dogs.  That's when an idea for a fun activity or challenge can really come in handy.  Here are a few of the activities we've done this summer when boredom struck.

They had to build the tallest structure they could using drinking straws, paper clips, and playing cards.

Here I gave them a few boxes of dominoes, popsicle sticks, and plastic cups and told them to build something.  They loved this and asked to do it again another day.

 In this challenge they had to build a catapult using tape, a tongue depressor, a cup and a pipe cleaner.

This time they had to build something out of things they found in the recycle bin.  They all opted for robots.

Yesterday we did an egg drop from 12-15 feet. The kids will had to protect their egg using string, cotton balls, Dixie cups and a freezer bag.  Here's a picture before the drop.

Here's a video of the drop.

I didn't realize until just now when I watched it that Dallin's egg actually fell on the grass.  Hmm, do you think the softer landing may have something to do with his egg being the only one to survive???  Either way, I promised to make cookies with any surviving egg(s), and  having done that I just pulled the last white-chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.  Mmmm.  Thanks, Dallin (with a little help from the grass).

Most of these challenges were taken from this website.  I just stumbled across this blog, which has very creative ideas I want to try as well.  I have also gotten a bunch of art ideas from this website, including step-by-step instructions on how to draw this dog (Adam's, with very little help from me).

One of our next art projects will be these adorable footprint fish!