Lego’s First club – Magnolia Makers

Mandy belongs to a Science club called the First Club, our group is called the Magnolia Makers.  There are 7 kids in our group, aged 6 – 9.  Mandy is the only girl.  We have been working all year to build things that move.  We have built a car that actually is remote controlled and the last part of the year  we have been working on making a model of something that makes a snack.

Our kids decided on the banana split and they researched the history and then made a cute model of a little restaurant and a little machine that moved around and was supposed to be the ice cream dispenser and also dispensed toppings and whip cream.  It did go around but didn't have to actually dispense the ice cream.  We went to an exhibit and competition yesterday.  I think the kids enjoyed it and it was fascinating to watch what the older kids made.  The older group 9 – 12 were doing robotics.  Their machines had to actually do certain things, scoop things up, move them from one place to another, move around obstacles without hitting them, etc. 

So, this is our group.  We had to make a poster with info on each of the kids, history about our snack and then our machine. Wait, one of the kids is missing – have to find another picture.         Some of the boys and our model.  The silver things are bowls, they are seats and a person for each of the kids.  The right side is the “kitchen” of the restaurant.  The judge talking to the kids and looking at the models and poster.  Each judge had on some kind of crazy hat.  It was easy to spot them!

The group received a trophy to put in their meeting room.   I think Mandy had a good time and this club has been good for her.  We wanted to have shirts for each of the kids but didn’t want to spend a lot of money and so we had them printed in black and then each of the kids used fabric paint to color their own shirt.

We took a couple of pictures of the older kids “robots” and the competition:

One of the older kids robots.  They had to be able to pick up and scoop things up.

   Some of the “unusual” judges.  It was a nice day, we stopped and had lunch and then went home.

Agency

Our theme for this year in Primary is Choose the Right.  It is all about having our agency and learning to make the right choices.

Today, I did sharing time and something interesting happened.  The first part of my presentation was posting one “A” and one “B” on the board and giving the kids a definition of each plan.  We were pretending to go to Disney World.  Plan A was that we were all going but that I choose all the rides they would take, what they would eat and where they would play but I guaranteed that no one would get lost or hurt.  Plan B was that we were all going but the kids could choose what rides they wanted and where they wanted to eat and play but I couldn’t guarantee that someone wouldn’t get lost or hurt.

In both Junior and Senior primary 1/3 of the kids chose plan A and 2/3 chose plan B.  It was  interesting.  By the way, Mandy chose plan A with no choice and Nathan chose B with his own choice.  Kind of made me feel a little like what Heavenly Father might have felt like.

Happy new year

 

 

Happy new year everyone