Detour

We had our first night of Detour last night. It's our new Wednesday night children's ministry at church. It's sort of a cross between our old Pioneer Clubs and WorshipU and is loosely based on the Workshop Wonders book. The kids start with a large group time. Last night we had about 5 middle and senior high youth come and talk about what "responsibility" (our virtue for the month) means to them. In the next few weeks we've got a lot of different guest speakers lined up each time. Then we did some praise and worship music and broke out into our activity groups. This first time we have a Lego builder's club, preschool art, cake decorating, dog training, science lab, homework help, and tech team (the lights, sound system, video, etc.). We didn't have many kids for the homework help, but I know that will pick up in the next few weeks. We have an amazing set of volunteers waiting to help and tutor, so nobody should have to stay home on Wednesday nights because the kids have too much homework.

I had to fill in at the last minute for the science teacher, so we mostly worked with vinegar and baking soda. Most kids past first grade have seen it bubble over and half of the kids had built the typical volcanoes. So I filled up some Ziploc sandwich bags and got them to explode, which was a little more exciting. I didn't get time to find some soap bubbles to try another trick I'd read about online yesterday. You build up a big pool of CO2 in a dishpan or some other tub. Then you blow soap bubbles over it. The CO2 is heaver than room air and tends to stay in the container pretty well. Since the bubbles are filled with room air, they'll float on the CO2 layer instead of sinking. It sounds neat enough that I still want to go back and try it with the kids. Maybe next week, but I think we're going to do electricity, light bulbs, LEDs, etc. Maybe some radio stuff?

Last night went pretty smooth considering that it was the first night. A lot smoother than the first night of Pioneer Club last year. I heard that we got a lot of positive feedback from parents and kids. The new remodelled space for the kids is looking amazing and it's still not quite finished. I really need to get some photos as areas get completed.