Our book for the month was Nation by the late Sir Terry Pratchett. It is definitely one of my favorites; I have read it several times now, and it still offers so much to think about. We discussed what sort of things we would like to keep and what we would do away with if we were starting a nation from scratch. School seemed to be pretty much off the table. Fair enough. Although hopefully there would still be time for learning new things; one can only take so many naps.
Then we had a short feedback session on what people like about Book Shop and what they would like to do next. Here is a summary (nine participants):
What do you like about Book Shop?
Books = 5
Activities = 6
Pizza = 6
Hanging out = 3
Learning from each other = 1
Other: Fun-ness of it; reading
I like books that are:
Intense
Graphic novels
Mystery
?
Fun
Graphic novels that are not real stories, like Artemis Fowl
I would like to read about:
Fiction = 5
I would like the following activities:
Games = 7
Building = 3
Science projects = 1
Puzzles/problem solving = 3
Drawing = 4
Coding = 2
Writing = 0
Other = Team building
Virtual Reality = 4
Candy = endless votes
We also made some doodles to clear our heads.
For our activity, we talked about what makes waves happen! Energy transferring from wind or from an earthquake. To test this, we made waves in a pan of water resting on a table without shaking the pan or the table itself. Much blowing and pounding ensued.
The next challenge was to construct a barrier to protect a small Lego island. Sadly, the wave test for this was not captured on video -- my request for next year is for a dedicated photographer/videographer, because I can't even. We do have some photos of the process though!
I would say the barriers were fairly effective 😄
May's book is Grand Theft Horse by G. Neri and Corban Wilkin -- see you next week!
