Robotics, Basketball & Sirens

This is what our family spends time doing nowadays. The Mr. is the coach for our robotics team at school. It is open to fourth through eighth graders so the Boy is on the team but the Girl opted not to join. The kids spent the first part of October playing with the Legos and getting the board ready. They also played around with the robot and the computer. They will have to learn how to program the computer and connect the robot to it. The team has to plan out how they will have the robot accomplish its tasks on the playing board. PLUS, they have to research and make a presentation on the year's theme. This year's theme is "climate." They're supposed to do a project on how climate presents a problem in our community and what would be a possible solution. Needless to say, enthusiasm was much higher before the research started! The meet is set for Bethel on Dec. 5 - 6.

Basketball practice begins on Monday after Thanksgiving. The Mr. is going to coach and I'll be team mom. My job will be to tutor kids who want to play ball but are ineligible. They will be able to work-out (exercise) with the team but when practice with the ball starts each day --- they will go to tutoring. This will be new to them and I'm sure some of them will be very unhappy this year. Eligibility is dependent on attendance and grades. Don't come to school = you don't play ball, or go to movie-night, or whatever.

Which somehow makes me think..... Have I told you about the siren? Every night the VPO (village police officers) runs their siren to signal curfew. Weeknights right now close down at 9:00. Weekends are 10:00. In the summer it will be 11:00. Kids wander the village until these times and sometimes even later. During Slavik (Russian Orthodox religious celebration) kids and adults will be out all night, even though the siren will go off. Anyway, we love the siren at our house. The playground is right outside our front door and kitchen window. Some nights it's a real relief when everyone goes home.