The great Lego project

I'm living in Lego Land. A sudden burst of organizing energy has us building, rebuilding, and cataloging all the Lego sets we have. It wouldn't be so many except that in addition to Calvin's, we have sets from Jon's childhood, my childhood, and others, like Curtis's and Gretchen's, so that our oldest set is from over forty years ago, and our newest from just one. And what began as a search for a single piece that was missing from a single set, or at least a replacement for it, became a exercise that closely resembled an archeological dig.

Calvin's sets, the newest of the bunch, were identifiable and accompanied by instructions and piece inventories, but the blocks from earlier childhoods had long been combined and tossed about, all memory of their original form having been lost to the ages. Tapping nostalgia and the internet we were able to identify certain parts and locate images, brick lists, and instructions.

It's been a whole family project, including grandparents. It's been a trip down memory lane. We printed, we sorted, we assembled. We disassembled and reassembled. Several times, just for fun. In the end we'd compiled a list of sets we have, inventoried the pieces and made a list of those that were missing, and put all the instructions in a binder for easy access. We labeled zip lock bags for the keeping of sets when not in use, although right now there isn't even one in storage, they're all decorating surfaces throughout the house.

There was a time, probably even just months ago, when an immersion of this kind would have left me uneasy. We'd been traipsing through ancient Egypt, with other ancient civilizations on the horizon, and I would have seen the Lego project as just a small break in a days activity, never been willing to spend whole days on it. But Calvin was keen on diving into it with every ounce of energy, eager to catalog, inventory, research, build, play, un-build, rebuild. I couldn't possibly curb that kind of energy, and in what was probably my first true unschooling act, I easily found the lessons in the one activity Calvin desired to do, in the identifying, the categorizing, the labeling, the building, and especially in the playing. Especially in the playing.

And as with all life lessons this one let us know when its course had been run. So we've come to the end of the project, but Calvin, and the rest of us by extension, is still living in Lego Land. We'll reap the benefits of our researching and organizing for many years to come.

Three childhoods worth of Legos.

Monday—Ziggurat meets Mayan temple

Over the weekend Calvin attended a program at the library about healthy eating and living. It was presented by UofM's Natural History Museum, but had been poorly advertised and only one other kid showed up. The truth is, if we hadn't already been at the library for the book sale, we wouldn't have known about it either. As it turned out, Calvin had a great time at the program while I worked the book sale, and he came home with four different starter plants that he planted himself.

So Monday started with a little watering.

In addition to chocolate cherry tomatoes, ladybug tomatoes, green beans, and carrots, Calvin came home with a stuffed red blood cell that he won in a game of Bingo. He named him Mr. Red Blood Cell, of course. I had no idea such a toy existed, but apparently there is a whole line of these things, from brain cells to the black plague, so after breakfast this morning we did a little jogging around the Giant Microbes site (just watch out for the venereals).

Then a little Lego play with Mr. Red Blood Cell and the Ziggurat he and his dad built yesterday.

Ziggurat, meet Mayan temple.

Mayan temple, meet Ziggurat.

There was some nomadic hunter gatherer play, obviously set in the time before farming but after domestication of wild animals. Either that or this nomadic hunter is in serious danger.

Calvin did some cut paper art, and we read all our library books over again—lots of great story books about the evolution of farming, technology, and eventually civilizations. While I was on the treadmill he read The Enormous Egg, and while I was showering he watched a few Schoolhouse Rock videos.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon (possibly my least favorite thing) while Calvin got some Gram and Grampa time. Then the store, a walk with Iris, tea with tangrams.

And a piano lesson for everyone.

Lego discovery Sunday

Chain reaction Legos (a Jon and Calvin creation): turn the crank, the wheel spins and activates a lever, which tips the box forward, which causes the car to roll forward and fall off, the car lands on a lever at the end, and a Lego piece is popped into the air.

The hand mixer (from the Lego Crazy Action Contraptions kit). Jon and I picked up this kit for a couple of dollars at the Borders closing sale last fall and have been holding onto for just the right day ever since. I think they finished four of the projects in the book, including a hand mixer, a "squeezeclaw grabber", a "no donkey donkey cart", and I don't really know what else, but I did notice that with each project they spent some time talking about how it could be better, and trying some of their own takes on it, and that's pretty much a dream come true.

Versatility. That's what I find so appealing about Legos.