the school day that would never end

.... and I mean that in a good way! :-)

Today we opened the magical box of Legos that arrived in our house several months ago. This fall we decided that we would sign up for the Junior First Lego League as a family. Jeff wanted to be involved too so we decided to work on it on the weekends. But then Clara got a part in the Nutcracker and her Saturdays were spent at the dance studio. The kit just got shoved aside. Then we found out that we had already missed the registration for the expo... which made it even less of a priority to start.

Well... I'm taking a more relaxed approach to our afternoons lately.... so I asked the kids what they wanted to do. They originally asked to do the K'nex Simple Machines set but then Alex very timidly asked if we couldn't open the JFLL kit. Well... why not?

I have to say that it is an amazing kit! At least 12 different projects with 3 or 4 variations for each project. My only problem with it is that it doesn't have the detailed teachers' guide like the K'nex does but I think we did okay. They started building the projects at 1:30pm and continued to build and experiment until 8:25 (they had to be showered and in bed by 8:30.... I'm thinking they only got wet... I'm not sure they had time to actually use soap and shampoo....lol!). They only briefly stopped to eat dinner. With all of that building and experimenting they still have only made it to project 6. After we get through all of the building, I think we might move on to doing the actual BIG project we were supposed to have done for the expo.

I think this was project #2... building a fishing rod and a lego fish to catch...

This was the first build... after this they added more weight to the fish and a different pulley system to the rod.

The projects are set up in a way that work really well for my kids. Each project as a part A and a part B (in separate instruction books) so each child has a piece to build and then in the back of part B they join their sections together. A typical issue for us is that Alex wants to do all of the building, leaving Clara without anything to do. This time she got to do her fair share of building.

I love, love, love days like this (however, I am choosing to ignore the fact that they both spent the morning doing their bookwork in their rooms since they couldn't stop bickering at the table... sigh).