ALA Gaggle Group 2

Myles and I spent time with the second group of this year's newbies this morning at the Museum. We worked with them on their visions for their chain reaction sculptures and on their proficiency with the various tools they'll use in creating it.

After dividing them up into groups, we gave each of the kids a piece of blank paper and a pencil and gave them about ten minutes to brainstorm/sketch/describe two different ideas for their creation. I almost think we cut their brainstorming time short! I think some of them could have kept drawing and designing for ten or fifteen more minutes!

We didn't have enough pegboards for marble runs for all the groups to have one today, so we focused on planning, drafting, and prototyping designs instead. I truly believe this was better because it helped them think more deeply about how they wanted their sculptures to work and to behave instead of simply jumping into the same old pattern of pegboard marble runs. That's a comfortable thing to do, so I hope this will help some to think beyond what they've done before. How wonderful would it be if our kids made amazing sculptures and chain reactions that didn't even use the pegboards?!

Myles checked many of the kids out on using the power tools while I spent most of my time working with kids and crickets. Omar has big plans for motors, light sensors, tricolor LEDs, and hex displays. Every "hole" on the cricket had something plugged into it. Eddie and Daniel and Kristen and Caitlin all got incredibly involved in writing music to incorporate into their plans. The morning had a nice feel to it. The kids were engaged and focused on projects that interested them!