Back in April, I was contacted by a local mom to do a rocket building workshop after school. Officially I am the president of the local rocket club so I tend to get these requests. It was for a local primary school but not Charles’ one. I didn’t get much response from the rest of the club so I volunteered myself. It was for an hour once a week for six weeks. I had to miss one because of a business trip but I made all the other ones.
I asked for the class to be restricted to 8 kids and 3rd grade and above but I was able to persuade them to let Charles come along even though he’s a 2nd grader.
Overall things went OK. The kids were a bit rambunctious and I overestimated their ability to follow directions without direct and continuous supervision. Two things I need to do differently are having wet wipes from day one for glue cleanup, and picking a slight simpler rocket kit. I used Baby Bertha model rocket. It had been a good choice for the Webelos but these kids were a couple of years younger and it showed. I think a Fat Boy or something similar with a slotted body tube.
I brought in some of my models, a couple of them very nice models that I bought at a fire sale from a club member who had to retire from the hobby. Naturally one of the kids snapped a fin, after which I noted that the rocket was older than he was and he might want to be more careful. Despite that it was overall a good experience.
For Charles, I would drive over to his school, pick him up, and then hustle over to the other school to make it in time. Charles seemed indifferent — he didn’t really object much but I am not sure he enjoyed it all that much. His siblings favorite part is that one of the girls recognized Charles from swim lessons over the winter, despite the fact that they had been in different classes so she saw him only in passing. Yet he was such a hunk that she immediately recognized him at the first class. We still tease Charles with “how’s Marlena?” when we want to bug him.
I can’t believe I didn’t write about this back in the day, Mom and I both claim to remember it, but no such post exists … so I wrote this in June 2010. We’re still teasing Charles about “Marlena”.