I thought that I was going to write on cold prevention, but I just sat on a bamboo skewer, and it changed the course of my day. Before goosing me, the skewer was impaling a painted meat tray and threaded with wine corks. Why is such a thing on my sofa? Because I shy away from buying my children toys and instead give them refuse to play with. Truly. The most satisfying hours of my daughter’s creative life come in the inspired moments of fashioning bottle caps, toilet paper tubes, plastic tubs, and duct tape into ice skates, catapults,personal computers, or postmodern habitats for Littlest Pet Shop, Barbie,Calico Critters, and other denizens of her bedroom that I refuse to buy more plastic accessories for. And she loves it.
At her school (the best public school in the entire world www.creativescienceschool.org),such construction is called Invention Center, and it’s the most popular choice activity at least through 2nd grade. It takes duct tape wallets (www.ductbills.com, www.dbclay.com) to a completely different level by adding shoe boxes, film canisters, toothpicks and pill bottles. It’s the Holy Grail of children’s activities:it’s cheap, creative, and will keep them occupied for hours without a screen. And it’s all about reuse!
You have almost everything you need for a Home Invention Center right now: yogurt and other plastic containers, egg cartons, lids, corks,fabric remnants, meat and produce trays, bits of ribbon, those annoying molded foam or plastic forms that help package all the stuff we get delivered to our houses because everyone buys online now and never shops within their community anymore but I’m digressing. You get the idea. If you might otherwise throw it out or even recycle it, it has a potential life as an invention. Our world of consumption is a never-ending source of bits and pieces that can be used to make wonderful things with a little duct or masking tape. To really invoke the Invention Muse, go to SCRAP (Chinook Book Portland/Eugene: Save 25% off a SCRAP material purchase) and buy more exotic flotsam and jetsam to enliven the upcoming days of darkness, rain, and locked school doors. Here’s some of what’s on sale right now:
Wallpaper Books
Letters and Shapes
A Gazillion Fake Flowers
Various Brightly Colored Plastic Tubes and Knee Guards
100 Count Boxes of Zippers
Shiny Silver Bags
Old School Floppy Discs
A bin full of these items alone (don’t forget the duct tape), will significantly improve your indoor winter experience with children. One note: you can’t keep all of these inventions indefinitely. Offer to take a picture of them and then reuse the materials, or (much more fun) sneak around after hours, take them all apart and play dumb. SCRAP also has their annual Holiday Bazaar and Bake Sale coming up on December 8th, where all craft items must be made from 75% reclaimed materials or found objects. Pick up cool sustainable gifts and enough crafty debris to keep your little monkeys busy for weeks all under the same roof!
The 100th Monkey Art Studio (Chinook Book Portland/Eugene: Receive one hour of "Drop In" studio time FREE with the purchase of a second hour) is another place to get crafty on No School Days all through Spring Break, or any other time. Coming up are classes on making your own soap, candles,crayon encaustics, fiber arts, and holiday cards.
And whatever you do, watch those bamboo skewers.