Star wars training dojo

Big man came home from school having done a star wars obstacle course in PE. It got him psyched about making his own game at home. First up hit darth vadar's light saber. Next guess who I am-darth vadar or chewbacca. Last but not least star wars hangman. Too cute. Love his creativity.

The sicko and the sunshine

Today is gorgeous! Like sunniest day we've had in weeks beauty of a day. Little man has no school so you'd think we'd be outside somewhere enjoying all this sun. But alas he is sick. Hacking cough, runny nose, low grade fever sick. So, instead of basking outside, or doing yard work, or walking the block, we're inside keeping our germs and cranky selves to ourselves. {and believe me we are cranky!} I hope those of you lucky enough to be experiencing this awesome weather are out there using up our share.

Our very own beach

We went to Mihir's school carnival a few weeks back and the theme was a beach. As part of the decorations the teachers cut out crabs and lobsters and put the kiddos faces on them. When the event was over everyone got to bring their creature home.
Fast forward to this week in my living room. Mihir decided we needed to make a beach for the crab. So we grabbed my 'sand' colored comforter to be the beach, a blue blanket for the water, and I cut out lots of creatures to join the crab including a shark, a jellyfish, and a few baby crabs. Oh and Mihir made a yellow circle which we hung from the ceiling as the sun. Pretty creative little man!

Bean Castle

So I have been making a farm for Mihir. He wanted little felt animals so I said-okay. What was I thinking? I'll post the results of that endeavor later.
Anyhow I filled the little guys with beans, split peas and lentils. Mihirhaf such a fun time sticking his hands through the mix. He decided that it was kind of like playing in sand. The sand comparison led him to thinking about sand castles which led him to make his bean castle.
A piece of white paper, glue spread in the shape of a castle and dumping beans made a great little project. Although if I had to do it again I would have had him work on a cookie sheet. A little too many run away lentils for my taste.

Family art time

Once agin we spent some time doing art together. Mihir played with his gak and tested how well it left marks on the paper. Kieran drew pages and pages of his Ben10 inspired creations. Subu painted a landscape he found in a book. I attempted to paint a picture of myself. Can't tell if our art time is improving our techniques or just providing together non-battling time.

Ooooo oobleck!

So after big bro decided he didn't want to Gak anymore, little man and I made oobleck. It's basically cornstarch, water and a little food coloring. The ratio is 1 1/2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water. But you can adjust to make it more solid if you like-which we did. Anyhow it's cool because it acts like a solid and a liquid and feels really weird. As you can tell by the pictures Mihir loved it! Spent about an hour pouring and crushing, spilling and building. Good times.

Gak attack!

So my kiddos have been watching tv lately and seeing this gak commercial. "mom we have to buy it!".
Well I am not one to buy something I can just as easily make (or at least attempt to make). So this morning we made some slime/gak.

Super easy recipe:
1 bottle of elmers glue
Food coloring
Two plastic containers
Spoon
Two cups
Hot water
1 tsp or so Borax

So basically I took the glue and divided it between the two containers. I poured water into the glue bottle and shook it up to get all the glue out. Then I had each boy add their favorite color of food coloring and mix it up. Once they'd found the perfect color mix I filled the cups about half way with hot water. I added around 1 tsp of borax and stirred until it dissolved.
Then with them stirring I poured the borax water into the colored glue. Wahoo-it's gak!

A couple observations from the boys experience:
-gak will stick to a fabric napkin (and is a pain to get off)
-It's harder to make the gak fart then you'd think
-gak rolls and bounces really well
-you can break it and cut it
-it acts like a liquid and a solid "mom it's called a sliquid because it is a solid and a liquid.". Actually it's called a polymer but cool new word.
-for one kid playing with the gak was super fun and lasted for about an hour
-for the other making the gak was cool and playing with it was okay but the commercial made it seem way cooler