make cool stuff

had a good week cause i learned alot. on wednesday evening panther kids ventured to the museum. we started of by playing a fantastic community builder jon just creatively named "15 minutes of fame". without the kids seeing, i placed a nametag on each kid's back with a famous person's name on it. each kid had to then go to another person in the room and ask only yes or no questions in order to try and guess what name was on their back. afterwards, we handed out the first round of snacks. we learned something about our group after about 10 minutes and 3 helpings later, that it may be a good idea to limit snack portions. i'll just say finding cups full of kool aid sugar with spoons in them, but no water, led me to believe portions per child may be best. next, with materials to work with in four seperate square sectioned off areas on the floor, the group broke up into pairs and worked on building chain reaction pieces. the problem we had with this group was the same we had on the following monday night at panther, which i think we may have a solution to. aside from not bringing enouph materials on monday, which i will make sure not happens again, one main problem with attempting to build chain reaction piecesis that the kids are lacking experience with power tools and therefore competency and confidence. carlos made a brilliant point that many children who are raised in an education backround where failure is frowned upon and punished, they therefore are afraid to fail and discouraged when attempting new things. so instead of these kids focusing and problem solving off the bat, they have inherant fear and complacency. after break, i'm excited to utilize a new technique for teaching confidence in using provided power tools, while at the same time promting safety. at meeting we came up with "power tool training cards" where each tool will be listed on their own individual cards, and after each kid shows safety and compitance with a particular tool has been learned, the tool will be checked off. we'll se how it goes, but i think it has potential. i want to thank carlos and gabe for assistance in a tough spot on monday when i had to leave early, and i'm excited to get healthy and ready for next week. have a great turkey day.