He makes, and makes...

Dexter continues to make stuff. So much stuff. Within an hour of returning from Vinnies with a pirate activity book on Saturday he'd churned out a sword, dagger, belt, hat and shield. He doesn't even particularly like pirates, pirate-y stuff never comes up in his role playing games, we don't even have any books about any beside Mem Fox's Tough Boris (which is hardly your typical pirate story)! It's all about the making.

This is a car racing ramp made from pencils, paper and sticky tape. He stuck one end to the drawers and the other to a pile of books. And well, sent his toy cars flying down over and over with Hugo assisting.

This is his current project pile by his craft table. Several things on the go here including a building with an external elevator (which is operated by an elaborate pulley system made from pipe cleaners), a car, 'balloon launcher' (??), several little houses and who knows what else. It's not always immediately obvious!

A large paper bag was turned into a robot costume last week.  He made a remote control, handed it to me and told me to program the robot to do whatever I needed!  Pff - of course I programmed 'it' to tidy up the toys!  When Will got home from work we acted out an elaborate game of showing off the new robot and wondering where Dexter had got to!  He insisted on the doing the whole thing again when our friends came to visit a few days later.  Oh, what a wonderful robot you have, where did you get it?  And what have you done with Dexter, I can't see him anywhere!

It's difficult to photograph but his creations are becoming more and more detailed.  For example, this robot has a battery compartment on the back, which when opened reveals little batteries (rolled up paper) which he can remove to put their 'charger' when necessary.   Another machine he made has a little door which can be opened to view the wiring - pipe cleaners.

Dex made an Explorer's Kit for his cousin's birthday.  It included binoculars, a magnifying glass and a compass  -  all inside a home made paper bag.  He was so proud of it.  See the N, S, E, W inside the compass?  He explained that he used the compass on my iphone to get the order correct.  Ha!  I never even knew I had a compass on my phone!  On the actual day of his cousin's birthday, Dex backed out of handing the whole thing over and decided to keep the compass and magnifying glass for himself.  Lucky Austin was none the wiser at this last minute culling of his present and loved the toilet roll binoculars, thinking they were the whole gift!

A few others bits and pieces.  A wagon with wheels made from lids, some springy paper thingies and a few samples of the remote controls/mobile phones/walkie talkies that are regular props in the games he plays with Hugo.