Questacon

When I began my full time role as teacher parent I assumed we would have a weekly schedule of curriculum and activities with maybe a a field trip or two every week. And really this is a great idea. Knowing myself though I should have realized that I would be lazy about creating these glorious schedules. And that's ok we are very busy an productive nonetheless and don't seem at loose ends. I also now know that two field trips a week is silly. Our days are endless field trips and expeditions. We are pretty much out all day every day and then dedicate our late afternoons and evenings to more formal teaching. Expeditions to beaches, up mountains, libraries, climbing gyms, museums, really whatever strikes our fancy. One of our favorites of all is Questacon.

When we first heard we would be moving to Canberra Aurora was a bummed. She liked Melbourne and moving every few weeks was not what she expected. And then I told her that the science museum in Canberra was way better than the one in Melbourne and she said "when can we go??" And it has not disappointing at all. It is one of the best science centers I have ever been to. They really manage to make children love science.

All science museums are hands on but this one is a step up. There are staff everywhere who engage you in science conversation and tell you interesting things. There isn't just an earthquake simulator there is an earthquake lab - they have you try your hand at building structures before activating a series of increasingly strong quakes and then they explain it all and discuss why some houses fell and some survived. There is a section where staff engage you in different real time experiments. There are sessions for little kids to explain science in an age appropriate way. Last week in our science time session about senses a blind man came to talk about what it is like to be blind and let the kids try out all the tools her uses to 'see.' Everyday there are at least three different shows about a wide range of topics. To name a few life in the oceans, rockets, space missions, spiders, predators... These shows are different everyday and each one incorporates lecture, photos, videos, and experiments to make them interesting to all age groups.  Aurora says she could sit all day and watch the shows. And she would. Actually, I would too. I learned that their key to success is that their science show team is made up of actors who are science enthusiasts. Brilliant! I think universities could learn a thing or two from this approach.

With such a great resource seems like the science curriculum is taken care of. Yet, the thing is that it is all so well done that it just makes you want to learn more. Aurora goes home and looks up footage from Hubble or New horizons. Most of the books she takes out of the library are about space, animals, chemistry, weather, and other science topics. All the videos she begs to watch are about things like the space station and freediving.

In other news, Aurora and Sophia entered a book competition a few weeks ago. The National Book Council of Australia wanted children to submit a picture of themselves with their favorite book about children and a few sentences about why it is their favorite book. Seemed like a good excuse to get Aurora to write and practice her typing so we made it a project. Sophia wanted to do it also so I helped her out. And then we found out this week that both Aurora and Sophia won! Shocking! There were only three children who won so pretty impressive. The girls are pretty pleased.

Floating ball outside Questacon

Should I be happy or sad? I was touched enough that I didn't make her rewrite as full sentence