Nick hasn’t been napping much lately.  Instead, he comes down and asks for the container with the sticks.  He takes it up to his room and plays.  If he’s not going to nap, the next best thing is for him to play quietly.

Today, he wanted to play with them.  He was so excited to show me what he made.

It’s a bowling ball and a stick for bowling.  He puts the ball on the table and hits it with the stick.  He was not happy with his first prototype since the ball roll crookedly.

He kept adding pieces to the sides and was so excited when the ball rolled straight.  By the way, I’m sure the way the ball rolls is mostly due to the player of the game and not the engineering of the ball.  But, it was so fun to watch him at work designing!

It worked!

Sally was feeling left out on the photo opportunity.  She wanted a photo of her pretzels so everyone could see her snack.

I’m having a super productive day and with an hour left until bed, I’m off to work on my list.

He is at a stage where he loves directions, maps and instructions.  He studied the manual which was a small pamphlet with a few step by step projects.

He created a few things.

The Bendables are sort of like waxed pipe cleaners.  I think they are really pieces of string that is stiffened by colored wax.  I didn’t take one apart to verify.  The kid came with 30 each of ten colors.  They are stuck together when you first get them.  Sally loved taking them apart.

The butterfly on the front of the idea booklet was Nick’s choice for today’s project.  After he spent time getting used to the medium of the sticks, he started to make this.

He needed more help than he wanted, but he was happy with the finished project.  The sticks are reusable and stick together, but not quite as good as glue.  I read that they stick better once you work with them.  Later in the day, he played with them again during nap time.  He’s sleeping less and less, but at least this was a quiet activity that he could do in his room.