Builder's Club - Summer Edition

This. was. SO MUCH FUN!

We do Builder's Club once a month during the school year, just a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon where kids can come in and create whatever they want with Legos, Duplos, etc. I only had time to schedule it once this summer, but I know a lot of kids were looking forward to it!

Inside I set out the usual tables with a mix of Legos and base plates,

Plus a table with these thingies someone donated.

Our carpet area had the Duplos (see, small pieces on tables, safer things at crawler level)

And the Mega Blocks on the stage.

That's probably a thousand dollars worth of building toys so far. Fortunately, what I didn't already have at home was donated bit by bit. We did purchase some base plates and Lego figures, but that has been our only cost.

Kids were waiting at the door while I set up, and got right to work!

So serious!

I never saw who made this, it just appeared. Later, there was a ball. These things are magic!

Some moms even found time to read a grown-up book!

Lots of baby-wearing mommies chatting while the kids created, which makes my heart happy. Adults really need the chance to make connections and enjoy each others company, too!

Outside we had mostly free stuff - trash! I went dumpster diving at Dollar General and had people saving boxes and cans for me for a month. We had old plastic trays someone donated a while back, and I added a few rolls of masking tape left over from a teen activity. We just piled it all in the grass and stood back.

THIS was where the real fun happened.

This house went through a dozen or so metamorphoses over the course of two hours.

Se the center support they put in there to keep the roof up? Nobody told them to do that! At one point there were TEN KIDS inside there!

I'm not entirely sure what was going on with the cans at times, but it all looked like fun.

I thought this looked like a stove (my messy stove, to be exact), but was informed it was a castle.

View inside the house during a brief uninhabited period

Again, I have no idea what was going on here, but it was all very purposeful. 

It was like watching a colony of ants - everyone seemed to be communicating mostly telepathically. There was no project manager telling anyone what the plan was, they all just scurried about carrying things, building, adjusting, changing. No squabbles I saw, when something caved in they just rebuilt differently. Many kids spent the entire two hours working away out here (after the first hour I grabbed bottled water for everyone!)

 No electronics, no instructions, just imagination and drive. High five, everyone!