The Attack of the School Projects…

I feel like all I did yesterday afternoon was school projects.

Want to know why?

Because all I did yesterday afternoon was assist with school projects.

Samara needed to make Fudge Mountain from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  The boy’s oldest needed to make an indian dwelling.  Matthew needed to make a cell out of jello.

We started with Fudge Mountain.  Fudge Mountain is not the color of dark chocolate, rather milk chocolate and the 10 year old signing her name to the project is not happy but you want to know something?  It’s the only brown color of the Crayola Model Magic they had (omg, I love that stuff!)  It’s constructed of a bowl turned over and a funnel on top.  It’s sitting on my $60 Partylite Bamboo tray.  The other kids keep calling it a volcano, and I feel bad for her.  She keeps yelling back that it’s not, but I know why they are calling it that… it’s the funnel.  But I HAD to find something that she could put the model clay OVER because we didn’t have enough to make s solid model.  At almost $4 for a small pack, I don’t care how much I love it… we’ve GOT to conserve.  She did decide that out of the “volcano” she was going to put dark brown paint so that it looked like fudge was rolling down and gathering at the bottom.  I thought it was a grand idea… as well as the flour for the “snow” on top of the mountain.

Oh and she needs OompaLoompas… we decided to use “Little People”.  I thought that was close enough and she didn’t argue.

Then we move on to the Indian dwelling.  The second grade classes are learning all about Indians and there were several dwellings that they could chose from to craft, but he chose the Pueblo… which was good.  I’ve helped with two of them before for both Matthew and Samara so I knew EXACTLY how to construct those.  We used the same clay as for Fudge Mountain.  And they’ve come a long way.  When Matthew made his, there was only white model magic… so we had to paint it.  Two years later, when Samara made hers, they had come out with colors but our choices were orange and brown and she chose orange.  Now three years later there are more colors and the perfect shade for a clay indian hut… Terra Cotta.

Not perfect for Fudge Mountain, but hey!  You get what you can get.

All his project needs is some Indians and ladders so that they can go from the floor to the top level of their newly constructed hut.

And then there was the cell out of Jello.

Oy.

Now… please keep in mind that I went to the craft store on Sunday for the clay for the Indian hut.  I went Monday afternoon for the clay for Fudge Mountain.  Then last night I went to the grocery store for Gummiworms, Jelly Beans and Jello to make the cell.  The boy and Matthew had figured out how to use Halloween candy, including lemon heads, nerds and twizzlers for this… oh and a gumball for the neucleus.  I thought it was pretty genius.  I was just supposed to go by the stuff and so I did.

There was no off-brand of Lemon jello and they wanted a dollar for a tiny box and I needed 5.  So, thinking that Lime would be light enough to see through, I bought it.  Two bucks.

We get back to the house and I tell Matthew that he needs to make it so that it has time to set so that he can put his components in, but he farts around.  At 6:30 we make the Lime jello and guess what?  WAY too dark to see anything in…

So I get to go BACK to the store to see if I can get Lemon… I go to a different store and it’s on sale but I’ve still paid WAY too much for jello and I’m pretty sure no one is going to eat the “oops lime” jello in the fridge.

But we got the cell made… complete with gummyworm googly bodies (and I’m not sure what they are but that’s what Matthew and the boy kept calling them) and it turned out ok.

The best part of all of this?  Matthew’s project was due today.  While I could’ve purchased the stuff earlier (and he told me, I just forgot) we had to make it last night.  The other two projects?  One is due Friday and one next Monday meaning I am WAY ahead of schedule.

Kinda proud of myself for thinking and working ahead.  Beats the last minute projects I’m used to.

But really… we should be good to go with projects until at least January…

Or at least I’m hoping…

Until next time…