My husband and I have been saving our wine corks for a several years now. We stuck them in this big ol’ vase which sits on a shelf in our wine cellar. (it’s really a wine closet in the basement, but wine “cellar” sounds way more refined.)
Over the holiday break, when my two dudes had reached the tipping point, feeling really over the whole “love thy brother as thy self” thing, and I just couldn’t listen to another robot battle game on the XBox, I pulled this little activity out of my, well, wine room.
I grabbed the corks, (restrained myself from sticking one in each of their mouths), some popsicle sticks, and a couple rolls of clear tape and told them to have at it.
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- They came up with the battle ship theme themselves, mainly because anything that can be remotely linked to battles and weapons and army play right now is like straight Mountain Dew shot directly into their veins. No joke something happened when they had a mutual mission. The bickering subsided. At least for a couple hours.
They shared design techniques and strategies for optimal floatation and were in a sort of Zen-building zone. After they had created their boats and a few warriors of some sort to occupy their fleets, it was time to see if their battle barges were sea worthy.
They happened to be sippin on some Izze soda during construction, so those got thrown in as well. It was a genius move. My kids used Scotch tape which worked well, but eventually needed to be re-done. Tape+water=non-stick. I’d recommend duct tape or glue if they can wait for it to dry before launching them into water.
If you aren’t a drinker of the fermented grape, I feel sure with one e-mail blast or Facebook post to your friends asking for donations, you would have corks a poppin’. And if you are a wine lovin’ mama, this just justifies your vino consumption a wee little bit more. “It’s for the kids” after all.
