STEM

Wednesday I  subbed third grade, then for YW we played human foosball.  It was busy and good.

Yesterday was a STEM family challenge night.  Lu and I went and it was a lot of fun.  The kids had  math Olympiad questions that they were working on when we got there, they love it and we watched them figure stuff out.  Then the challenge started, they had some plastic spoons, 5 paper clips, a piece of aluminum foil, a couple band aids, a couple straws, some spaghetti, cupcake wrappers, a paper cup, package labels and a piece of string and they had 30 minutes to design and construct the tallest tower possible.  It was super fun to watch.  There are some real alpha males in that class and they are serious about their competition. 
When we first got there the teacher had a picture of some famous bridge that suffered some terrible resonance disaster (I don't know what but some of the alpha dads did :) ) on the picture was a quote Failure is an option, expect it, learn from it....or something like that.  It was met by the hugest shocked "what" from the kids...fail??   You mean like when so and so got a "C???"
In other class news, Dana (one of the smartest girls) missed her first spelling word all year this week.  There is general sadness at this development.  They were rooting for her to have a perfect record. 
It's a different class, different in the best way, at least for E. He loves it and gets to do lots of cool things with lots of great kids that think a lot like he does.