Marble-ous Homeschooling Project

Jonathan just got a load of computer gear for his Red Blue Design and Design207 set-up.  Seriously, if any more monitors move into our bedroom, I'm going to move out.  Just kidding.  But software developers sure do like monitors:

I know it's hard to tell, but that's like six feet across and three feet tall.  Anyhow, all those monitors and the special monitor stand came in boxes.  Boxes and boxes.  There are so many cool things to do with boxes.  What should we do?

Well, when I was in 6th grade my pre-algebra teacher had us spend about a month of Fridays building small boxes with card stock, on which we used more card stock to create elaborate marble runs.  And recently I saw a simple marble run on Pinterest for a toddler, made on a big piece of cardboard.  It brought those memories back to the forefront of my mind.

My kids already love marble runs.   I have prior experience constructing marble runs.  We have cardboard, card stock, tape, glue and numerous other household items ideal for crafting marble runs.  We have small bouncy balls (err, we lost our marbles, literally).  Obviously we need to make a marble run of our own.

 Supplies!  (Do you remember using that term all the time as a little kid?  You always needed "supplies."  School supplies.  Fort supplies.  Run-away supplies [my cousins and I really liked reenacting certain parts of Annie and coupling it with the concept of the Box Car Children, I think.]  Mission supplies.  In retrospect supplies were a necessary element in staying out of the grown-ups hair.  I mean, if you have all you need to survive, what do you need Mom and Dad for?  ;) teehee)

The Plinko part was actually all Olivia's idea.  She hasn't even seen the Price is Right since she was a wee toddler.  I'm going to have to show her what Plinko is.  

This is where we're at.  We've had swimming lessons and hikes and new Math websites taking up our time, but we'll get back to it soon.  I'll definitely post our finished product.

It would be really cool if we could create some kind of Rube Goldberg effect, but perhaps we'll endeavor to do that another time.   Wouldn't you love to see us do something like this?  By the way, that makes me teary every time I watch it.

Here's something else that's sweet, a picture Olivia painted for me: