Evolution of a project

The making and developing of a 6th grade project.  They had to make a model of Sam's mountain or treehouse from the book "My Side of the Mountain".  Fun.  1st step, besides cutting the foam-board, is to gather a bunch of newspaper and crumple it up in the basic form.  She also used some duck tape to hold it in place while adding more.

Piling newspaper up as the mountain

Then we add strips of plaster-of-paris material dipped in water, over the newspaper.  Stroke down the seams and make any dips or other "features" you want while this is wet - it soon hardens like a rock.

Here is the covered mountain form.  We had to have a spring, a canyon, a sloping meadow and a creek or two.

When it's totally dry, then comes the painting.  Use a mixture of greens and browns to make it more realistic.

These throw-away plastic bottle holders from work are wonderful for mixing and holding paint!

You can keep painting as needed.

When the paint is dry, you can add "grass", models of animals and other extras.  They encouraged the children to use real things too, such as sticks, stones and little branches. Sam seems to be sunning himself on the hillside.

A close-up of Sam's treehouse, pile of firewood etc.

Some other projects at school.  DD was relieved to see hers wasn't the biggest!

About time...

to add to this blog (I'm actually writing this in December but dating it to the day these pics were taken).  People - - don't take so MANY photos and videos - it fills up your disc space and you can't download any more!  Ok, Ok, I know about iCloud and all those other cyber storage spaces  -  call me old-fashioned...

So - here are some more photos - haven't decided of WHAT yet but I'll go check in the photo album and see what I come up with!

My goofy girls

Up at the apple farm

Hi Sweetie!

Hi Precious!

What a gorgeous fall day on Dayton mountain

Lets see if I can push this ladder in (she didn't really).

Life is good!

Where shall we take this thing?

Easy does it!

Bye-bye!

How about to that island!

Please steer this thing!

While others nap....

Ah - we made it!

Now where to?

Still napping....

Time for canoe now.

Two little indians.

Look at the amazing colours!

Still napping.....

Learning to steer this thing too!

Beautiful day!

This was in October 2012.

Pathfinder Southern Union Camporee

Some pics of our recent trip to Florida for the SU Camporee - along with 5 to 6000 other pathfinders in the union.

Camp map

Photo taking

Rope Lashing

The Spring with the blob

Go-Carts

Wave Pool in the quiet phase

Water slide (loved this!)

Towards the enjoyable Lazy River

From in the Lazy River

Doing the Dutch Oven honor - the stew, biscuits and apple crisp were excellent!

The rodeo was at 4pm on Thursday

The girls' tents, looking towards the "cafeteria" canopy

Lining up on Sabbath for our march to church

All 6000 pathfinders marched to church....!

Watching the others go by until we joined them - it took about 30 minutes (or so it seemed) just for them all to pass by.  We were near the end of GC Conference but another whole conference was behind us.

At church - a WARM experience - with little shade!

The stage

Three friends outside the zoo

2-yr old Fred (??).  He was energetically playing with an old plastic wire reel most of the time - his favorite toy while it lasts.

A large old cypress here - what? it started growing around the time of Daniel the Prophet??  Amazing!

Along a boardwalk in the swamp

I love these twisty roots.  I have a lot of photos of knees and roots in various shapes and contortions.

Peace and tranquility

and no mosquitoes either!

Enjoying the cool, refreshing waters of the spring

Before the Sabbath program

Evening program - everyone received glow sticks.

And that brought the camporee to a close.  We had awesome weather and had a good time.  I'd definitely do it all again - although might bring a thicker mattress!  These photos in no way cover all the 84 possible activities provided for the pathfinders but I hope it gives you a small idea of some of them.