Back to school

The boys were back to school yesterday, for one day before Anzac Day. The school chose to have a pupil free day on Monday, which made for a very stop start week. I don't think they mind at all, though, with it being nice to have another day back to holidays before the term starts in earnest.

Declan wrote a piece about his holidays, in which seeing a stingray was his highlight. And Callum very much enjoyed "relaxation time" in which his whole class lay on the floor with their eyes closed for about ten minutes. A back to Kindergarten experience for the year 6s!

School decision making

The Friday before last, Callum, Evan and I went for a tour of Redlands, the school which has offered Callum a scholarship. It was a very impressive school, with lots of great facilities. The Registrar did a great job of selling the school to us.

But we ended up deciding to turn them down. Possibly because you are required to do sport every Saturday, possibly because they have to go to chapel every week (Callum hated that part), possibly because the very upmarket nature of the school made us uneasy about what kind of people Callum would be going to school with.

At the moment, we think Callum will be going to Mosman High, where he has been accepted into the Academic Stream.

Lord Howe Island

Evan has lots of posts about Lord Howe Island on our travel blog. The summary is that we had a great time, so much so that Declan decided we should go back every year (despite the fact that he had a panic attack about snorkelling off a boat).

After Lord Howe, we unpacked and repacked at home for half an hour before driving up to the mountains for a Minecraft fest with Aidan, followed by a Sunday at Ironfest, which was as good as we remembered it (despite us leaving before the jousting started).

Highlights included making the beginnings of chainmail, practising archery, watching a falconry display, seeing a replica of R2D2 and trying on lots of different forms of armour.

Minecraft again

The boys have been getting ever more sophisticated in minecraft. In the latest development, they have started a Property development company. They build houses and then sell them to people. So far their only customers have been younger siblings of friends, so I'm not sure if it is a money making idea.

It's led to lots of interesting discussions about the nature of money, though, and whether it is possible to have money in a universe where any resource is there for the taking.

Snorkelling

In a practice run for Lord Howe Island, we went snorkelling at Shelley Beach on Monday. We were very lucky to have Bill, Finn's dad and marine biologist, as our guide. Bill took us directly to the spot where he had seen sharks the previous weekend.

Evan and Declan saw sharks (with Declan getting a bit freaked out, even though they were smaller than him) but Callum and I only saw some fish, which were spectacular enough. It was lovely, with the water warmer than the air, and lots of schools of fish hovering over the seaweed.

After we decided we'd had enough snorkelling, we had a lovely hour sitting on the beach with the kids alternately making sandcastles and talking about minecraft.

Science at the Powerhouse

On Wednesday the boys got to go to the Powerhouse for a science day - Professor Pickles' advanced Potions Class. They came back divided. Declan was convinced that the Powerhouse was even better than Diane, their weekly science tutor, and he is keen to go and talk to Diane about all the experiments she should be adding in. Callum, on the other hand, is extremely loyal to Diane, and while he had a good time, said that Diane was still the best science teacher he had ever seen.

They came home with slime and sherbet, which is a winner for any science course.

Talkover

We had the Lees over yesterday for a trip to the MCA, and a sleepover, or, as Aidan explained, a talkover. When the boys went to bed in Callum and Declan's room, and I was wondering how long it would take before they stopped talking. In the end it was only about 15 minutes, but they had a great time anyway.

It was a struggle to pull them all away from Minecraft, but we had a nice trip to the MCA yesterday (walking there across the bridge) and walk down to Lavender Bay (this morning) which gave them a bit of exercise.

Minecraft server management

In the last six months to a year, Minecraft has become the dominant obsession of boys (and some girls) of Callum and Declan's age.

We gave Callum his own server for his birthday last year, and he's been having a bit of a learning experience managing it. He has rules, no killing, no griefing (which means damaging things other people have built) and no swearing. The hard thing recently is that he's had to enforce some of those rules by banning a school acquaintance.

He's thinking of starting a whitelist rather than blacklist process, so that he has to approve people who join his server in advance, rather than just banning them when they do something wrong.

Tricky social issues in this IT age.

End of term

Callum and Declan came home yesterday thrilled that the term has ended. I think they had a good time this term, and enjoyed themselves, but it is nice to have a nice relaxed start to the day this morning.

They've both settled back into school very well. Callum is enjoying running around doing lots of different things (he does the sound for school assemblies, extension work with a small group o f Year 6 kids, one day a week at Cromer, as well as occasionally sitting in his own classroom!). Declan has slotted right back into his group of friends, and told me he spends every recess playing stuck in the mud with them (there are 10 boys from his class who all play together now).

At lunchtime they do chess and programming three days a week and get playing time the rest of the time.

The highlight of the week, though is still science with Dianne on Thursday afternoons which involves lots of fabulously creative and messy experiments (the one I saw a few weeks ago was putting shaving cream on a balloon and popping it to watch the behaviour of gases when they are no longer contained by a balloon).

Schools schools everywhere!

We thought that we wouldn't have any decision making on schools to make for a while, as the selective school results don't come out until July.

But in a very pleasing (if complicating) development, Callum has been asked for scholarship interviews by two private schools which were second and third on our list - Redlands and St Andrews.

We went to Redlands to meet the Principal yesterday morning, and at the end of the interview the Principal said he would like to offer Callum an 80% scholarship, which surprised all of us. We think the Principal (who studied classics) liked the fact that Callum knew who Artemis was, even more than his ability to demonstrate that he could speak some French.

Sadly International Grammar (which was top of our private school list) will not offer Callum a scholarship, so now we have four schools instead of three on our short list (for the record, Redlands, IGS, Mosman High and Manly selective).

New shirt

Now that Callum is a big Year 6 boy, he has a special shirt to prove it. Every year Cammeray gets a special school uniform shirt for Year 6, which is green (instead of gold), and has the names of every Year 6 child on the back. I'm not sure whether we have enough for a whole week, but Callum is certainly keen to wear it every single day.

Callum is particularly pleased because now everyone knows he is in Year 6, instead of occasionally assuming that he is in Year 4 (because of his height).

Robotics afternoon

On Sunday afternoon, we all went up to school for a special robotics workshop. The robotics group that Evan runs on Thursday afternoons is doing an Easter special - they have all programmed robots to throw easter eggs at a mass of excited children at assembly on Monday. Callum's robot (which he has built and programmed himself) whirls a plate around, distributing eggs in all directions.

Declan's robot (which he shares with Finn, Ethan and Jamie) has a very long throwing arm that throws easter eggs one at a time into the adoring crowd.

The mass of robots should create some fantastic chaos on Monday afternoon.

Visit from Finn

On Saturday night, Declan had his friend Finn over for a sleepover. Finn and Declan play computer games constantly as it is, talking via skype. So there wasn't an enormous difference when they were actually in the same room. They had a wonderful time, neverthless, with Finn taking Callum's bed, and Callum getting to sleep in the big bed in the spare room (which he also loved).

Despite the extra hour available from the end of daylight saving, they were too excited to sleep much, but had a great time nonetheless.

We managed to entice them outside on Sunday morning with a visit to our two local playgrounds, but they really just wanted to play computer games.