diy – Car Full of Harmony

With all of the usual summer camps and classes canceled, I decided to help my girls have some adventures this summer of our own. For my first week of summer camp, we did three different ideas rolled into one. I figured there’s no way I can fill 8 hours with just one theme for 5 days. Instead, I created more of a collection of classes for the girls to explore some of the things they have interests in. For week 1, this included writing, movie creation, and cooking camps.

I actually tied the writing and movie camps together. The first day last week, I had the girls write a script for a puppet show. They had to keep in mind how many puppets they could easily switch between. They also needed to be sure to develop a plot. This was mainly aimed at my soon-to-be 1st grade daughter. My soon-to-be 5th grader didn’t need as much coaching on the elements of a story, which was good. I was able to help my youngest while my oldest went off on her own to work.

Then I had the girls pick out their puppets, and I had old socks available in case they wanted a character we did not have. That way, they could make anything they needed. They were sent off to practice their show 3 times to work out the kinks and character switches. After that, they performed the show for each other (and me & my camera!). Voila! Movie #1 was done!

For day #2, we read some fairy tales from Grimm’s Fairy tales and then read some twisted fairy tales (I have a thing for crazy twists on these classic stories ever since I had a teacher have us right our own twist. My favorite one to read is “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs” by Jon Scieszka. It’s told from the viewpoint of the misunderstood wolf!). I then tasked the girls with writing their own mixed-up fairy tale.

For the movie part of this adventure, they could either choose to act out their story, or perform it as another puppet show. Surprisingly, they mixed it up!

Day #3 featured the girls working out their very own newscast. Since they’ve been writing newspaper stories for their summer paper, I had them start their articles for that for the writing side of camp. However, I teach music lessons on Wednesday morning, so I typed out a nice guide to creating a newscast and how to split up the headlines, special feature, weather, and sports portions of the newscast. They then had to work out their parts and once my lessons were done for the morning, I recorded their newscast. I then put it all together in a quick iMovie, and added a nice news fanfare lead-in and closing. Boom. Done.

Day #4 involved the girls learning how to persuade their parents with a persuasive essay of their choice (Wormy chose to advocate for a game night, and Squid asked for a time turner from Harry Potter…oh boy). We then talked about how these same skills were used when companies make commercials – aiming for a certain audience, selling their points to change people’s minds about their product, etc. The girls then wrote, practiced, and recorded their own commercials for a product of their choice.

All of the movies I’ve made of the girls are housed on their very own unlisted playlists on YouTube that I have created. I will then be sending out a link to family to watch videos, if they are interested.

On Friday (day #5), we finally had a break in a heat wave we were having, so we took a break from the writing and movie work and played outside. The girls also had a dance recital tonight that they practiced for each day, as well, so they got extra time in practicing outside.

For the cooking part of our camp, the girls have been making food from the America’s Test Kitchen for kids subscription box that Squid’s awesome godmother bought the girls. I decided it was super awesome they can make these fun recipes, but I wanted them to also know the basic things – you know, survival food! Their cooking this week featured Mac & cheese (from a box), tacos, corn dogs, spaghetti, and grilled cheese. I am happy to report that I was able to stand in the kitchen and tell the girls exactly what to do without doing a single thing myself. They truly made dinner for us completely. And, added bonus – both girls can cook noodles, brown meat, and flip things in a frying pan. You know, those important skills….

I love kids’ knives! They both aren’t scared to chop things up because the knives aren’t scary!

So, stay tuned for next week….I think we’re going to do ukulele camp and photography camp for certain. We will see what else we need! There have been requests for the rest of our movie camp ideas to come along as well (stopped animation is on the list!)

I have to brag a little about Squid. Both of my girls have big hearts, but Squid is now to the age to show hers on a bigger scale.

It all started with her school’s “One School, One Book” program. Squid’s elementary school has K-6 in it, and every student gets a copy of the same book. They read it in class and do various activities that are linked to the book. The program started in January, and this year’s book was K. A. Applegate’s “The Wishtree.” Squid loved this book, and from a few pages into it, she had decided she wanted to create her own wish tree.

As her mom, I am used to ideas she has. She is sometimes like me, in that she comes up with many ideas, but not all of them ever make it past the idea phase. I wasn’t sure how serious she was until she mentioned it more frequently.

Then, coronavirus entered the picture. With how different things were, and how much the girls missed their friends and school, Squid decided this Wish tree was exactly what needed to happen.

Around the same time, a friend of mine posted on facebook that she had seen a wish tree on a walk in a nearby town. Squid, Wormy, and I took a field trip during an online learning day to check it out. It was so exciting to see someone else sharing the same idea Squid had. We took note of how they did things, and Squid made modifications based off of making things a little more environmentally friendly for the area around the tree. The tree we visited had wishes attached to it that were made of paper. And, although some people tried to place them in bags to protect them a bit more from the weather, the wishes still weren’t holding up as well as Squid was hoping. We liked how the organizers had left out supplies so people could create their wishes onsite, but we got there after a rain, so the crate of supplies were wet.

It was so exciting to see a real wish tree! Now I understood Squid’s mission!

After seeing the wish tree in action, I understood a bit more about Squid’s idea. We talked through what we saw and how she wanted hers to be. She did not want the wishes to fall off of the tree, so she suggested doing what the characters in the book had done – using ribbons and scraps of fabric to make the wishes hold up against the elements. My husband thought we should have a collection of supplies out for people to make their own items, but with the virus around, Squid didn’t think that was a good idea. We got to pick up Squid’s book from school, and I read it. Now Squid’s idea made even more sense to me. I suggested we tie a rope around the tree to make it easier to take the wishes down when we get to winter, and to hopefully not hurt the tree from growing or cover up any of its leaves for photosynthesis.

I encouraged Squid to go about this the right way. I had her draft an email to the town supervisor asking permission for her idea. I told her that otherwise we did not truly have permission to take over a tree on public land (she picked a nearby park for her tree, as it is used for a lot of summer events). And, I didn’t want anyone to think her work was vandalism. The town supervisor liked the idea and passed it on to the director of Parks and Rec. He met with Squid and talked over what he could offer as far as taking care of the area (mowing, trimming, etc) and getting the local newspaper involved. Squid then said we could share the news on the school’s facebook page as well. She also said we can put it up and take it down each year, as the Parks and Rec Director suggested this could be a reoccurring event.

After my husband and I helped her put the rope up, we put our family wishes on. Squid visited the tree every single day watching for people to put wishes on. She was getting pretty bummed out, because people weren’t visiting it. However, we started it on a very rainy week, and it was on a weekday that I advertised it on the facebook page. Since then, luckily, it has really taken off. We counted about 2 weeks ago (before she was the front page story in the local newspaper, and a feature section in the area newspapers), and there were 38 wishes on the tree. We can’t wait to get over to the park again and count now that she’s been in the news!

I am so ridiculously proud of this girl. She did such a cool thing from start to finish and she didn’t cut any corners along the way. I hope her tree really takes off for years to come!

Tag: diy

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