School Project Day, a.k.a. "He Glued My Cheek!" Day

I continue to have a love-hate relationship with school projects.  One of my idealistic dreams of homeschooling is that we can take all the time we want making really cool projects about whatever we're studying... but when it comes down to it, making projects drives me completely batty.

 I get all the stuff out, and all the tools, and we brainstorm ideas, and then it all goes downhill quickly.  Everyone fights over the materials, all hands get quite grabby, and Mom gets quite crabby.

Now I will say that the projects have gotten a little easier and more fun now that the kids can initiate and follow through on their own creations more.  For instance, today we decided to work on (very rough) replicas of the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, don't ya know.  Colsen and Miles ran right down to the garage and found some scrap wood and put together their own frames lickety-split.  So that was pretty cool.

Then it was time for the Glue Gun to come out -- the highlight of all school projects, don't ya know.  This is when the activity was decidedly less fun, and the accident toll began to rise.  Fingers were burned, and yes, we even had this little interaction:

"Mom!!  He burned my glued my cheek!"
"No, I didn't!  You put your cheek right next to my hand!"
"Well you burned me!"

Etc., etc.

Nevertheless, we persevered, and isn't that the ultimate lesson to be learned on School Project Day?

(They look exactly like the Hanging Gardens must have looked, right?  They even have little bucket-pulley irrigation systems to get the water to the top terraces.... hard to see in the pictures.  :)  )