Congratulations to Dee's DSIL! That's such good news.
Yesterday's LEGO Club was a lot of fun again. The kids were excited and I loved it when one would walk in the room and immediately start waving to a friend. Several parents stayed in the room with us the whole time, which I think helps a lot. And again, the kids built such interesting projects.
I asked the kids to sign in this time, including age and what city they live in, to give us some statistics when we start applying for grant money. I was surprised at how far away some of them live, but I think maybe they come to stay with grandparents after school. Most are 7-12 years old, with a few younger and a couple of boys at 13. I think that's exactly the ages the children's librarian was hoping would come.
Last month we learned that we needed to set up more tables and chairs from the beginning. This month I learned that next time I need to start cleaning up before the end of the session. Either that, or just put everything in random bins and don't bother to take any time to sort pieces before putting them away. Even with a couple of moms and boys helping to take down tables & chairs this time, it took over an hour to clean up because we also had to vacuum the whole room and damp mop the side room where they entered to take off their coats and muddy boots.
One funny thing we learned was about setting out the bins of pieces for them to use. Last month we only set up 1 table for that, because we didn't realize how many kids would be coming. We saw how they were all hunched over that 1 table going through the bins trying to find the pieces they wanted. This time we set up 3 tables, all with the same assortment of pieces, with enough distance between that kids could stand on all sides. The funny thing is most of the kids still hunched in a bunch over the same table, ignoring the pieces available at the other tables.
I find the whole thing fascinating. Once again, though, we had so many kids and I was so busy, I didn't get to play with the LEGO pieces myself.
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