Cool pencil sharpener

We spent most of the morning organizing our art supply center.  The kids' job was to round up every pencil in the house and sharpen them all.  They love to sharpen pencils, so they were happy to do it, and that gave me plenty of time to get everything else in order.  Our electric pencil sharpener can sharpen about four pencils before it overheats and has to rest.  While it's resting, the kids sharpen by hand, which is still fun for them, but creates a lot more mess.  Noah devised a way to keep the electric sharpener cool. He strapped an ice pack to it with rubber bands, and put ice cubes on top of the whole contraption.  He was afraid water would drip into the mechanism (whatever that is), so he added some paper towels.  I'm not sure the sharpener worked any better, but it was a good idea.