TheBanyanTree: Lego logistics?

[peter macinnis]

On 13/01/2018 18:03, anita at redpepper.net.au wrote:
> On a completely different topic - have any of the parents out there
> developed the perfect Lego organising system??

Chris and I, as parents, started trying to keep the kits separated, but 
before long (say, 10 minutes?), bits were being subverted to new roles. 
We gave in and used a big tub with a lid, and that's what we'll use for 
the two younger grand daughters (now 13 months). Mind you, before they 
are seven, they will have a good Meccano set, as my daughter did. Our 
two sons were allowed to share the set, but it was Cate's, and now it 
belongs to her daughter.

(I may have old this tale, but it bears repeating: when Cate was in 
pre-school, she came home to say they had to say what they would be when 
they grew up. I told her she would either be a plumber or a research 
physicist. A little boy who didn't know what a research physicist said 
"girls can't be plumbers", so I sent Cate back to say that yes they 
could, and her dad knew three girl plumbers. The truth is: her dad had 
been handling the files of our first three girl plumbers, guarding their 
backs. I didn't really know them. Anyhow, that stayed with Cate, and she 
referred to it in her Ph.D. thesis, pointing out that she had, in fact, 
combined many of the characteristics of plumbers and physicists as she 
constructed her equipment. Clearly somebody was being political when she 
got that Meccano set. Hehehe: last time I was in New Zealand, this time 
last year, my wife, my daughter and my grand daughter took me along as 
their designated sherpa on the world's first Women's March. I win!)

Since we banyan folk haven't been talking much, Chris and I got two more 
grand daughters as a Christmas present in 2016. They were anticipated 
and hoped-for, when son Duncan and wife Megan bought a home near us (we 
have our Advanced Grandparenting Certificates).

We are busily subverting them, and as soon as the girls are old enough 
to know that some kinds of nuts are not for eating, we will get them 
started, because I think Brianna will still be using hers.

As for Lego, I am planning to let the girls loose on Lego Teknik, but 
I'd better practice on the older pair.  In a week, I will be in New 
Zealand with them (it's a regular part of each summer that we are 
live-in child care until school starts), and as I have reached a 
(planned) writing gap, I plan to follow the advice of a friend and start 
learning to do stuff with the BBC micro:bit, along with the kids. With 
my usual cunning, I will manoeuvre them into teaching me how to use it :-)

With luck, they will plead with me to leave it there. That's my aim, anyhow.

With stuff like that, lists of rules are only useful if they have big 
margins you can write notes in.  Rules get in the way of fun.  So do 
boxes.  My next book to come out already has a dedication: "To 
Schrödinger's other cat, who always thought outside the box."

But to save your feet at night, you MUST have one box to hold them all, 
and in the darkness bind them.

peter

-- 
Peter Macinnis       petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au
Principal, Seurat School of Train Spotting,
Formation Karaoke Diving Costumes for hire.
http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/