MERC

On Monday, the girls and I went to MERC.  That's the short way of saying Sir Peter Blake Marine Education and Recreation Centre.

The homeschoolers booked the Centre for the day, and 120 kids were there between 9 am and 4 pm.  They got divided into 10 groups, with each group doing three different activities.

Miya's three activities were abseiling, boarding and dingy, while Mulan's were boarding, raft building and archery.  The boarding was supposed to be body boarding, but the sea was completely flat so instead they did giant stand-up paddle boards that could hold 13 people.

Both girls learnt a bit about knots (Miya while doing abseiling and Mulan while doing raft building) and both have come away inspired to do more knot-related stuff at home.

They both really enjoyed their two water activities (of course) -- any time in the water is always a good time.  But Mulan's water activities were more educational than Miya's.  With both of Miya's water activities, it was mostly just jumping on and off the board/dingy and playing in the water.  I felt that was a little disappointing -- they could have learnt a bit of rowing/paddling.  Mulan paddled on the board, while the raft building was mostly about learning how to tie barrels together and design a raft that didn't fall apart in the water (their raft held together while the other team's raft fell apart).

Both the abseiling for Miya and the archery for Mulan were first times for them.  It was a great educational opportunity, and Miya even said that she enjoyed the abseiling the most out of her three activities.

So, yeah, a great day was had by all, except that we were so busy that we forgot to put sunblock on and our faces got a little pink!