Little Inventors

Back in March, Madeleine came home with a flyer from school in her backpack.  It was information about a camp to be held at school during the summer called Camp Invention, and it pretty much decided for me what we'd be doing for child care this summer since I'd have to find other things to work around it.

I saved up a box of recycled materials, and they each took a "take-apart" item to explore and see how it worked.  Maddie had my old desktop computer, and my brother's house flooded last week, so he had a dead one to spare for the cause as well for Lily.

They came home each day super-excited about their activities and wanting to go back the next day.  Lily points out registered trademark symbols *everywhere* we go and tells me what they mean.  They were excited about using real tools.  I've heard a few more big words this week, and I know they'll want to go back next summer.

It was from 9am - 3:30 pm, so I had to enlist my parents to do drop offs and pick ups.  Dad also attended their presentation of their duck launchers on the last day.

Makers

This past weekend we attended the Maker Faire NC at the fairgrounds.  Madeleine has been interested in inventing for years, so I talked it up as a way of seeing what other people are doing.  She has a lot of ideas and ambition, but not so great on the follow through.

Luckily there was space available at the weaving table when we walked up.



That got them started and we were able to take home the looms and project with us to finish.

They were also excited to see the Scrap Exchange booth, but since we'd been up there last weekend it wasn't quite as exciting.



It was very crowded, so we probably only were able to see about 50% of the exhibitors and didn't get to watch any of the combat robots.  Lily did like one of the robots wandering around that had cameras for eyes.   They liked the giant marble contraption in the middle but didn't want to help in construction.  They just kept picking up the dropped marbles.



We did finish our weaving when we got home though!

Performance Highlights

Lily and Maddie had their first grade end-of-year performance today.  I asked them to select which songs were their favorites, and I've posted them here so as not to bore you unnecessarily.  This is their first concert that they were close enough together where I could zoom in and get them both.