One Way to Make Pinwheels that spin

After reviewing many online items... and having gone through many gyrations of my own creations, along with my friend Z... I had gotten it down to needing some kind of buffer between the pinwheel and the stick... but it still didn't work well. Then walks in hubby. Yaa, you know where this is going. He goes, "Why don't you make the pinwheel on a straw and then put the nail through the straw?". I love him and could shoot him at the same time. By the way, that was NOT as easy as it sounded. First, a picture of the items needed to do this project:



Tape, glue, hole punch, beads, straws cut to size, paper cut to size and hole punched, mallet, round dowel, nail, clear stiff paper (I used sheet covers) and a whole lot of patience. Tater cut all the paper and punched all the holes. The clear paper was to make the 'ends' for the straws. Had to have some way to hold that pinwheel on that straw. During this I discovered that the boys love cutting straws. Any guesses? Yaa... they shoot all over the place. Did I mention my vacuum cleaner is on the fritz? Little bitty straw pieces. All over. Both boys. Ugh. But here is the best picture I got of a couple of the finished products:



Oh, that ugly tablecloth... it was $1.50 at Bed Bath and Beyond after Thanksgiving... works great for projects! But the project is NOT over yet. We have to make a sign to advertise the product. I thought Tater and I were going to be at odds over this. He kept making his e's really tiny even though the rest of the words were large. I threatened to make him write a page full of e's if he didn't cool it and fix it. OK, so I had a bad mommy moment. He was really pissing me off.

Once we got past that and he realized what I was saying about using more colors would be more fun... he got into the spirit of it. Here is Tater hard at work... and he did it all...





And my understanding is this only gets worse. Sigh... wonder what 1st grade will bring????

Oh... and I found out that the 'market' was going to happen on Wednesday. Hope the teachers have done this before and at least one item gets bought at every table! I would hate for any student not to have something bought. I know that is real life, but come on... this is the end of the year for kindergarten. Then again, I wonder what my son will be bringing home?