In one of modern education's finest moments, Mark Icanberry stood before a room of elementary-school students Thursday and described how he used to wear his mother's pantyhose. He even brought pictures.

There he was 7 or 8 years old, the pantyhose pulled up over his head and attached there. His young, smiling face peered out from behind a cut-out cereal bowl, and voila! -instant scuba suit for Halloween.

"I kind of came from a construction family, so I was always building something or making something," says the 36-year-old author. "Legos, Lincoln Logs, stuff lying around the house. If you let your imagination go, you can make just about anything."

This is Icanberry's message to the world, and he's been determined to take it to Riverview Elementary in Rancho Cordoa and points far beyond. Armed with 60 helium balloons, a construction hat made out of masking tape and toilet paper, and copies of his first two books-Picnic on a Cloud" and "Super Salads"-Icanberry is out to prove that Dixie cups and wooden dowels can be made into mini version of the Hindenburg in no time.

The first-through fifth-graders at the Riverview after-school program were certainly buying in. In less than 30 minutes, Icanberry had them construct a 50-foot-long "airship," using Dixie cups for counterweights.

Then, just for laughs, he cut the airship in half to create two smaller ones, and began racing them across the room. The propulsion system: another balloon, of course-blown up, pinched off, attached to the airships with masking tape and then let go.

"Yeah, I really liked that race part," said 10-year-old Krystal Wicks, a fifth-grader. "That's because my team won.

Nobody was having more fun than Icanberry, who was almost obsessive about adding or subtracting pennies from the Dixie cups to maintain "neutral buoyancy." "I didn't want to be like other children's authors.

I didn't want to show up at school or bookstore and just read my book," Icanberry said.

"I wanted to do something that left a lasting impression, a permanent impression.

"They built something they wouldn't even normally do. For me, if they can do this, then everything else seems simple.

As a young man, Icanberry funneled his construction bug into real-estate ventures, buying and refurbishing dilapidated properties in Seattle and the Bay Area.

When his son David was born 13 years ago, he began to toy with the idea of children's books-specifically, a series of books that would not only tell story but also offer household construction ideas for children.

The result was the launching of the "Look, Learn and Do" series, which debuted this fall with the release of "Picnic on a Cloud" and "Super Salads" Berkeley book, "Extraordinary Projects From Ordinary Objects," is due out this spring, and Icanberry already has the storyline sketches for 10 more.

As for other projects he might bring to the classroom...well, how about a live volcano? Not the miniature version you build on a table with baking soda and vinegar. Icanberry is thinking about six or seven 50-gallon, Rubber maid garbage cans piled high, a five-gallon bag of vinegar.

Anything worth making, apparently, is worth making big. "I still get excited every time I do something like that," he says.