Light Bulb!

I had a lightbulb idea last night. It's such an easy idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

After Colin's school conference last night, I was very pleased with his academic progress but a bit concerned about his shyness and lack of social skills. I'm not even sure I would label it as a lack of social skills. Colin just has a pretty profound sense of right and wrong. He does not like to be made fun of, laughed at, teased, etc... While I realize that there is not a kid in the world that likes those things, they rock Colin to his core. Even if a child is not meaning to laugh "at" him so much as "with" him, he still gets upset. He is sensitive and righteous.

Colin has some athletic ability. He can ride a BMX bike. Although he might not take first place, or even third place, he tries and he holds his own. He's a pretty decent swimmer. He can throw a baseball and run a race. He just does not have a competitive spirit. He does not like the feeling of losing (again, no kid does) but he does not have the desire to put the effort in to practice enough to win. He's just not competitive in that sense.

So, at recess when most of the other boys are doing races, competing in tether ball and making up games that include winner and losers, Colin does not participate. Therefor, he does not play with the other boys. Therefor, he does not have friends. You see where I am going with this....

He has other interests. Legos is a very strong interest for him. If recess consisted of playing with legos for 20 minutes, he would eat it up. Insert Light Bulb moment here!

I am going to start a Lego club at Colin's school. I've already emailed his teacher and recruited at least one other parent (thanks Cindi!) to help. It will just be for 1st grade boys for now. I'm not sure how much interest we will have but I think we'll fill the club pretty quickly. We will meet for 1 hour 1 day a week after school. We'll limit the number of kids involved so it is a manageable group. We'll challenge the kids to build certain projects each week. In order to foster cooperation, friendship and creativity, we will group the kids with different partners or cooperative groups each week. There will be no "cliques". It won't be the cool kids versus everyone else.

This will give Colin (and I suspect a lot of other boys) a chance to be with like-minded kids and share their skills. I am so excited to give some kids the opportunity to feel like they are part of a "group". There won't be competitions or a show of bronze. Just fun and creativity with a bunch of silly boys.

And, as an added bonus, maybe my house won't look like this everyday. Yes, I know, it probably will. But a girl can dream.