creativity day

A few months ago, I heard about a store, called The Scrap Exchange where you could find recycled and overstock art supplies really cheap. Then a few days ago, Will complained about the lack of stiff paper after his little brother and sister had destroyed his construction paper mailbox he had made the day before. He had put a lot of time into it, complete with a latch to shut the door and I felt badly, since this sort of thing happens more frequently than I would like. We drew some diagrams of ways to keep a new mailbox out of reach, using a pulley. I figured I could satisfy my curiosity and promised him that we would go shopping on Wednesday.

The store was easy to find, even with a couple of missed turns, but I was disappointed at what we found inside. It was basically thrift store bits all in bins and barrels you could pick through to fill your $7.50 bag. With a little scrounging we did find some treasures: upholstery scraps for bedspreads and curtains for the dollhouse, some glittery sticker paper, yarn for our knitting frames, but there was a lot of junk that I had to be firm about not making it into the van.

When we got home the schoolroom turned into a colorful madhouse with Will sawing away on a cardboard tube to make a pulley, Mary cutting holes in pink fuzzy fabric to make a front pack baby carrier for her American Girl doll, and Maggie and Charlie waltzing around in dress up clothes complete with their new gold tone broken watches. "Jewels!" they pronounced grandly.

When Tim came home he was inundated with little voices calling, "Daddy, come look at my room!" The girl's room was decorated with a new Manet poster, a hammock for a doll, and a primitive elevator. In the boy's room was displayed a poster of a Greek statue and the finished 3 sided mailbox. He was very impressed, except for the holes in the wall.

This morning I am sitting in the schoolroom, preparing for another day of math and reading, science and spelling, surrounded by paper bits and fabric scraps. I have decided that Creativity Day is going to be followed by Clean Up Day so we can get back to some order and peace.