We we are back at school. We have actually been for three weeks now. We have divided the school year into six, six week blocks and alternated science with social studies. I am realizing just how fast those six week blocks are going to pass. I need to make sure that we have stuff to show for each block.

Ian is studying structures this block he had a number of questions.
How do buildings survive earthquakes? Volcanoes? Hurricanes? Tsunamis?
How long does it take to build a building? We discussed that size would have an effect on that answer. He then named off a number of buildings. Most he has seen built in Minecraft.
We have watched a number of documentaries on buildings including on the advances that allowed us to build higher, building the Burj Khalifa, Building to survive an earthquake and one on building hurricane proof houses.

The fun part is we build an earthquake table where he has been testing to destruction structures he has built out of lego and Keva blocks. It is interesting that you can somewhat replicate the different types of earthquakes. If you push down you get an up/down motion, if you pull it to the side you get horizontal movement. He found that some structure survived one but not the other.


Last weekend we went to our local Catholic Family Camp. It was good community building and I had a number of good talks. We were also treated to a beautiful sunset. On Sunday our local Filipino community roasted up two whole pigs. It was absolutely delicious.

We have new learning outcomes this year which is driving the teachers in the public system a little crazy but for me they are closer to what I do anyways. It is meant to be more student led learning and demonstrations of learning rather than exams.
One new course we have although we have always done it is Applied Skills. So far Margaret has made a Raspberry Pie and Rice Crispie squares. We also have a Raspberry Pi on order. She will do some programming on it.

We also finally got around to celebrating Everyone’s birthdays. I got surprised when friends came over with an yummy Ice Cream cake. It was a wonderful surprise but it did make me feel a tad guilty about how overdue we were in celebrating the kids birthdays. Philip went with a friend to the IPE (local fair with rides) The rest of us and some friends went to the movies and for ice cream. The movie was Kubo and the Two Strings and it was excellent. I highly recommend it.