Legoland

On Thursday, all the second graders got to go to Legoland. Christian and I are never happy about this trip as it takes the kids 2 hours away. Plus, the education value of such a trip is a bit questionable. There are so many other places they could go that is a bit more local that is more educational. But as Emily got to go, we could not help but let Caitlyn go as well. The good thing about this trip is that they actually made room on the buses for chaperones. When Emily went, they expected us to drive ourselves down to San Diego to meet them. I don't see how you can be much of a chaperone, if you don't even go together!

But I digress, I did chaperone Caitlyn's group to Legoland. It was fun for the brief time that we were there. We literally spent more time on the bus than at Legoland itself. It's a bit frustrating when you take all the effort to go all the way, only to have to leave again shortly after.

We started off with a little presentation on building from Legoland. The kids learned about gravity and friction and things of that nature. Then they got to pair up and build racecars. Then they got to try them out and see if they worked and see how fast they moved against other teams. They could then, make adjustments or rebuild according to need.

The kids had a blast. Caitlyn's first race car managed to make it to the finish line, but it was slow. They made some changes and it seemed to get worse. After the second change, it wouldn't even get down the ramp. They decided to take it apart and rebuild from ground zero. They managed to made a smaller car that was a lot faster. They won about half the races against other kids. Then they ran out of time and had to disassemble the cars for the next group of kids.

We had lunch and had some time to take a tour of some of the amazing lego structures and ride a couple of rides.

We had a fairly large class so that made it even harder to herd them around the park and through lines. We really only got to see the beginning of the park before it was time to head back.

But we got home more or less on time with no incidences and the kids had a great time so all is well.