A home workshop lends itself naturally to kid's school projects. It's nice to draw on leftover paint, scraps, and widgets from previous projects and applying them to school projects. It's been rewarding to start working with the kids on kindergarten posters, through elementary school dioramas, and even cub-scout pinewood derby cars.

The best part is the transition from working significantly hands on as a parent to protect the kids from sharp blades and to teach them the possibilities of school craft projects, to a point that the kids take the lead.

Jack had to do a project showing the layers of the earth, for 7th Grade Science (which of course he dropped on us Sunday morning). The concept was his idea completely, he asked us to pick up some Styrofoam spheres to make a cut-away, and questioned me on how to decorate them. He described what he wanted, right from the start.

No the sander was not used on this project, but the pliers were! So it's a messy workbench.

Aside from some assistance with spray painting and sawing the unwieldy globe (with a hack-saw), he really ran with it.

Spray-Paint?!!! Yeah, we learned that spray-paint and Styrofoam are not really friendly together. The paint melts the Styrofoam, shrinking it, pitting it, and making a lovely snap-crackle-pop sound. We managed to get a decent finish by lightly dusting it with the paint.

Together we experimented with spray painting a continents on cardboard before we attacked the globe. We sliced up smaller globes, painted them, and assembled the whole thing with toothpicks. He labeled the whole thing using a label maker. It was a four-handed job to wrap the labels on finishing nails to make flags.

Another decade of projects on the way.