Instead of styrofoam balls can you get a huge roll of brown paper? Hang it up along one wall, section it off and give each student a section to play with. Gives them a much larger canvas to work with, yet it's a shared project.

I'm not sure, vw. You might get a lot of "what is this for?" questions.

If you want to cover another day, one cheap, easy craft project I did when I was doing summer camps and afterschool programs was making hugs. If you have brown craft paper, let them lie down and spread out their arms. They can help each other trace their "hug" and then cut them out and decorate them. They can send them to grandma or give them to their parents or whatever.

I actually stole that from "From Better or Worse" many, many years ago.

Instead of styrofoam balls can you get a huge roll of brown paper? Hang it up along one wall, section it off and give each student a section to play with. Gives them a much larger canvas to work with, yet it's a shared project.

I do stuff like that with them as well. It's actually about time to do another one, since I just took the big Christmasy one down off the wall. But, we do group projects on a different day...

I'm actually so disappointed to find this out. I've been saving up materials to do this with them: [link] and I no longer think it's gonna be possible.

Oh, and Amy, I LOVE that. That's fabulous. I'm totally writing that one down.

Happy Birthday, Joe!!!

Why does the merest mention of Raiders of the Lost Ark set the "Well of Souls" theme going in my head for hours?

For the same reason the merest mention of Raiders makes me desperately need to watch the movie immediately.

I do stuff like that with them as well.

::Grandma-->suck eggs::

Sounds like Amy came up with a winner! Those hugs sound fun.

Would this mean that people have to refrain from using the words finesse, snow and November in my presence?

Only if they knew -- that's the deliberate part.

::Grandma-->suck eggs::

SO not true. They love doing the group projects like that. I give them a theme, and they go at it. It's so cute to see the more sophisticated stuff of the older kids with the concepts the little ones come up with. And the big kids usually help the little ones come up with ideas. SO fun.

The last one of these we did was "Gifts for Jesus." One of my little guy drew frogs. It was adorable. His mom asked him why he would give frogs to Jesus, and he said, "Because he gave the frogs to us! We should give them back!" It just made such perfect sense in his little head.

Eyeh. I think my shorthand was too short. I just meant that my idea, something that you've had in your repertoire for probably a long time because you've been doing this kind of stuff for years, was an example of me trying to teach grandma to suck eggs. I mean, we did that stuff 40 years ago! Why would I think you hadn't heard of it? Duh.

Oh my god, y'all. After a post-Christmas argument about which lake sank the Edmund Fitzgerald, I only just managed to drop that earworm.

Thanks. Really.

(It's a good thing I love the song.)

Happy Birthday MiracleMan!