Inspired By Annedroids

When my kids talk about, draw or build their dream houses, several things are always included; a candy room, an indoor slide and a science lab. From their descriptions, I'm pretty sure their science lab would also include every art and craft material known to humankind, as well as a large pile of "junk" that they could use for their various projects and experiements.

I'm pretty sure the creators of Annedroids, Amazon Original's new show for kids, have the same daydream. Anne is a kid genius and scientist, with a couple of human friends, a couple of android friends and a huge junkyard laboratory. The live action show emphasizes STEM learning, problem solving and is way more appropriate than most shows aimed at tweens.

After we watched a few episodes, I asked the kids if they'd been inspired to develop a project or experiment. Lovebug's idea was to turn the basement into our own junkyard lab, but since I'm not a TV parent, I wasn't supportive of dragging power tools, old cars and piles of junk into the house to entertain my 6, 8 and 9 year olds. Instead I pointed out that we had plenty of stuff that would work for projects in the real world, where elementary school kids don't get to repurpose cars.

Recycling household "junk" into "cool stuff" (as described by Hugmonkey) became the plan for the afternoon. Ironflower started out by sketching some very elaborate plans for turning paper towel rolls into drawer organizers. As of this writing, that project is still in progress. I do feel that the show inspired Ironflower to solve one of her organization problems instead of just complaining about it.

Lovebug's project involved all the toy catalogs he hasn't let me recycle. He's making a catalog of his own, with the "best stuff" from each of the others. He is also determined to do "something cool" with all of the scraps.

Hugmonkey immediately went for the paper towel tube. Then he chided me for not saving "all the paper towel tubes ever." I see an extra recycling box in my future. Anyway, Hugmonkey made a light saber.  When Lovebug suggested that they find a way to make it actually light up, Hugmonkey was reluctant to try it with his light saber that he'd worked so hard on, but he's will to try it with the next paper towel tube.

Possibly unrelated: Hugmonkey and Lovebug are trying to use paper towels for everything lately.

I just love the ideas behind this show. Common Sense Media named Anne one of the role models of 2014 and it's easy to see why; she's bright, creative, searching for solutions to problems and handles failure gracefully.




I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.