Siena and the Machine

Siena's first week as a first grader has gone pretty well.  Her favorite things are school lunch and... well, that's pretty much all she can talk about for the first half an hour home from school.  I love that she's a foodie first grader in a non-hipster way.

Recess is her second-favorite thing.  She came home from school the second day and told us that she proposed to a group of budding inventors (a.k.a. her classmates) during recess that they build a machine.  This is to be an extraordinary cleaning machine, as they have poured over the details for 4 lunch recesses now.  I was proud of her initiative from the second I heard about this machine idea, but the day she brought home a "blueprint", my heart swelled.  Since then, her classmates fellow scientists have brought her needed supplies.  For example, in the picture above you will see, alongside her blueprint, a diamond, a bobby pin, a few Q-tips, and a bag of grass.  I have asked her to label the parts of the drawing so everyone is clear, but she told me that it's really easy to know what things are just by looking at them.  :)  For the "dummies" out there, here are the names and uses for the parts, starting with the bottom left corner going clockwise: stairs up to the trash bin so responsible students can walk up to throw away their own lunch trash, a monitor for something science-y, three chairs for the trash supervisors to observe the lunchroom from above, a grabber used to pick up trash from irresponsible students, a time clock, and a slide (which I will explain in a moment.)  The center of the machine (which is on wheels, by the way) houses the control panel with which supervisors can push cool buttons.  It also contains a small bagging area where the grabber puts the irresponsible students' trash.  After that trash is bagged, it slides down the slide into a final trash resting place.

I know, I know... my child is a shining star in a sea of sickly, boring 1st graders.  We really need to get her into a science protégé group. (I wonder if I still have Bill Nye's phone number....)