Let's Hear it for the Red, White and Blue

Summer camp at the school where I work is always an adventure. But this year we've taken it one step further and have made it a BIG adventure shooting back and forth between different places in time. (Eerily reminiscent of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure perhaps.... :-p) Our first few weeks started out with a time machine to take us there. Unfortunately, some punk kids from the neighborhood thought it appropriate to creep by in the middle of the night and walk off with our black box of adventure. It's okay. We can still access the time contiuum portal without it. You can take our machine but you can't take our imaginations....

This week was supposed to be a jump back to the colonial period. I stopped by the first grade classroom to catch the kids inventing a machine -- a la Ben Franklin -- with their bodies. It was the noisiest, craziest machine I'd ever seen....loved it!! :)

Red, white and blue permeated the week in true patriotic style. The counselors-in-training challenged all to a cake baking contest Friday with the only requirement being that is was patriotic. My co-teacher of the day in the 3rd-4th grade classroom is a Disney fanatic. Do you know of anyone who spends every vacation at the happiest place on earth and explains nearly every project according to an analogy based on a scene from a Disney film?? :) He announced that we would be making a Mickey Mouse cake, no questions asked, explaining that Mickey was certainly one of the most patriotic things around. Hey, when you love something that much, you can make it fit into any category you desire. Don't judge.
Wild West Mickey? Dress him up like a cowboy. Star Wars Mickey? Darth Vadar-style. Wii Mickey? Just make that round face a little chubbier and cut off his arms. San Francisco Mickey? Put some flowers in his hair.

Patriotic Mickey? Let's hear it for the red, white and blue.

And don't forget the fireworks.