4Xplorers

What a year! Today marked the end of our school year. These kids did a great job despite of the challenges. Thank you to , and for organizing this fun little graduation by the backyard .

Another warm day yesterday, and the kids decided to play with the sprinkler, and they went nuts! We look forward to more days like this.

30 degrees in early June, unheard of but we will
Take it.

Spring is here! We went for a hike to see , such beautiful little falls! It feels good to be out and to get some vitamin D!

Field trip day . The fossil trackways were first discovered in 1841, making the official birthplace of vertebrate paleontology in Canada! This site has long been known by Paleontologists and Geologists for its unique treasures and evidence for the invasion of the land by the first vertebrates (creatures with backbones) to dare to leave the sea. The kids were so eager to find fossilized tetrapods 🦎, however, we found what may looked like fossilized roots, tree barks. This means we have to come back again.

So true... ❤️

Nice day to shoot hoops in grandparent’s backyard😀

We didn’t imagine the world will turn into this, nobody did. People were living their normal lives and all of a sudden it came crushing down. We are thinking of the people that we’ve met in all our travels and praying that they are doing well. We are putting our international travels on hold and just explore our beautiful province. We decided to homeschool again this year because of the uncertainty that this pandemic might cause. The children are enjoying visiting local museums, lakes, ocean, island and trails. The children are also doing sports, while we still can with strict health protocols in mind. We pray and hope that this nightmare will be over soon and we can travel and see our friends again. Please be safe, healthy and .

Sofia joined me for a sweaty boxing session today. She loved it and wanted to do it again.Thanks Vincent and for an amazing session!

Hi this is Sofia, my homework today is to write a story on Facebook on the trip to the dream museum.The dream museum is a very cool place where a artist paints a drawing and your in it! There were over 100 paintings you can be in. Here are my favourite paintings. If you comment on this post I will respond!

We have been finding many fun ways to learn experientially over the past few weeks. The KL Discovery Center was full of opportunities to explore AI, coding, programming, building and creating. We liked it so much we spent two days there. Kidzania gave the kids many role playing activities including police work, magic acts, surgery, pilot, food prep and so many more. The zoo and aquarium were both very educational as well. Sofia has really noticed and engaged with issues surrounding single use plastics so we signed a pledge and found some great books at Kinokunia. Travelling light poses its challenges for resources and toys but we read all we can when we are at a bookstore. Epic online reading platform for kids has been a good investment. It’s midterm break for us now so surf school is next and hopefully a visit to the Bali Green School.

He enjoyed exploring the zoo in KL. Just G and daddy day. @ National Zoo of Malaysia

A lot of fun learning in KL! from kidzania to petrosains discovery centre, the kids had a great time exploring and learning. Surprisingly, they both enjoyed the discovery Center which had a lot of interactive activities like robotics, flying a drone and building your own plane model, car racing simulator and many more... @ Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The taxi driver suggested this beach just passed beach and I’m glad we bought in to it. we’re the first one on the beach. It was quite a work getting to it! We were on the road at 7 am, got to see school kids in the morning getting their snacks for the day. We also discovered the best siopao (pork buns) in town. Great feeling to be out in the morning and seeing people start their daily normal lives. @ Naithon Beach, Phuket, Thailand

We’re glad we chose to stay in Nai Yang, beautiful beach and no crowd. We’re lying low for now because of the virus, avoiding tourist attractions Just enjoying the sun and sand. We hope and pray this thing will be contained soon.

The beauty of street food of Thailand 🇹🇭

Our hotel had their annual dragon dance this morning and the kids were all dressed up for the . The kids were very curious and amazed with the dragons and costumes. It was loud but they learned that it’s a way of chasing away evil spirit and to bring good luck to Chinese people. Thank you ! We had a wonderful stay. We hope to see you again soon! @ Bangkok, Thailand

We visited Jim Thompson’s house which is in the middle of Bangkok City. It’s now a museum and showcase his full collection of Thai silks and arts from Southeast Asia. A beautiful traditional Thai house situated along the canal with a lush garden around it. We got to learned about how and where silk is made from and how he revived the silk industry in Thailand. His silk collection was used in the stage musical The King and I. He lived quite an amazing life full of adventures. Sadly he mysteriously disappeared in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia on 1967.

We continue to explore and we wouldn’t want the kids to miss the floating market and market. Amazing things that we wouldn’t see anywhere else, art of bargaining and learning about Thai baht and its conversion to CAD.

We just finished a Thai dessert cooking class and the kids recognized that it’s similar to Filipino dessert and we loved it! The kids enjoyed making rice balls and eating them too. We made bua loey (sticky rice balls in coconut milk) and foi thong (golden thread).

The 4Xplorers are off again, but not without having had some discussion around if we should continue after Christmas. Trying to get out of Halifax with the winter storms and a jet off the runway delayed departure, and now Taal Volcano is causing delays getting out of the Philippines and into Bangkok where we planned to start our travels before Hon’s grandma passed.

While we were home, we considered settling back into life and school in Halifax. I wasn’t sure that this was best for everyone, Sofia was really missing home and her friends at school, Honey was missing our routines and it just would have been easy to stay home. As a family, we all decided that it would be best to continue with our world schooling adventure.

This term we are focusing in on modes of transportation, entrepreneurship, flora and fauna, languages, food, architecture, culture, music, and currencies. We will be in Bangkok for a week and then it is wide open, but we are planning on seeing as much of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and New Zealand in the coming months. While we are travelling, we are following the GLOBAL VILLAGE SCHOOL AND THE WHOLE CHILD, HEALTHY PLANET METHOD which can be found online.

We are considering Phuket, Chaing Mai, Krabi, Georgetown, Genting Highlands, Lake Toba, Bukit Lawang, Singapore, The Gili’s, Bali, Komodo and more. We would love to hear some suggestions or interesting ideas that you have had that might fit with our broad focuses listed above.

I continue to think about what skills our children will need in the future to be successful and happy in a world that is changing so quickly and one in which we have no idea what work/careers will look like. With the gig economy continuing to take over, the whole idea of long term employment seems to be donet. Talent is not restricted by location and more and more barriers for hiring will come down, making every job a world-wide competition. Multiple cultures, different ways of working, different ways of thinking with rapidly changing technologies all create a future that is unclear. Are our schools adapting to this reality? I am not sure anymore.

We are back on the road and starting our travels in Thailand so we put together our learning framework for this semester.

The Morash Family Learning Philosophy:

Our philosophy is a set of ideals, standards and beliefs used to guide our family through our world school experience.
we believe…
• Learning is an exciting, lifelong journey, where the challenge is to discover and pursue our passions
• We each have our own strengths and talents and work best when we are happy and able to follow and explore our passions and interests.
• We do not just accept diversity and difference, we celebrate it.
• People achieve more when they are empowered. If any of our family members has a suggestion the answer has to be “YES”, unless it takes too much time, too much money, or negatively impacts on someone else. This is called the “Yes is the default Policy”
• Our family learning community is important and we all have an individual and collective responsibility to make it work.
• Innovative education should be developed collaboratively together as a family.
• An entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial skills are valuable and transferable through all aspects of life. This mindset is vital to be able to participate in the rapidly changing world that we live in, now and in the future.
• Each one of us benefits from having a detailed individual learning plan.
• Young people have brilliant ideas and can do amazing things. We will not let age be a restricting factor. Young people have far more capacity than the traditional educational system gives them credit for.
• Each of us should contribute significantly to the decision making process and operation of our world school program.
• It is important to measure growth and individual well-being, as well as achievement. This growth should be across a range of areas and measure not just literacy and numeracy.
• Education is not just about preparing for a changing future, but instead engaging with the world in meaningful ways each day.

We arrived home to a bit of a mess last week, but we are all happy to be home! We felt as though our week in Washington DC was not nearly enough, so we broke up the 3500 mile drive with a day in DC. We crammed in another day at the Smithsonian Museum of Space, Vietnam War Memorial, Martin Luther King Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, The White House and so much more. 13000km on the van, not a bad start for our world school experience.

Before leaving home for our world schooling year, we read many homeschooling books including The Well Trained Mind, Teach Your Own by John Holt, and Project Based Homeschooling among others. I recently came across a blog by edventuregirl which was called 10 Ways World-schooling has ruined my childhood. The title scared me, but by the end, it was pretty interesting to hear how this young woman, who travelled for years with her family, and who has recently graduated from Queens, looks at her experiences.

We have had some interesting learning opportunities in Naples, Florida this week. We did research into the Everglades, Manatees, and mangroves. We learned how to build a stop motion Center and use it at the Naples Children’s Museum. We did lots of LEGO, brick building, water play, sewing and George has made more progress in the pool while Sofia works on her coaching skills. Keeping up with math and other subjects is more challenging but happening with some extra encouragement.

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. - Roger Lewin

We didn’t make it to Billund but in Orlando didn’t disappoint. The kids enjoyed the rides and got to build race cars. They both love so this was definitely worth the stop!

The Hogwart Letter came late..... Harry Potter was the highlight of our trip to Universal Studios. @ Universal Studios

It was a hot day when we came to this park, So we did mostly indoor rides.... Safari was fun. The kids were excited to see big animals up close. The Avatar park and 3D ride was the best ride ever!