Author: Marisa Palmer

Field Trip!

The Acton heroes headed to Wingra Boats and Henry Vilas Zoo for their field trip this week. They had a great time! And they planned it all themselves!

From researching potential locations, to mapping the bus route, and sticking within a budget, the heroes were in charge of determining where to go and how to get there. They did a fantastic job navigating the day and loved paddling in canoes, seeing animals and enjoying ice cream!

Civilization

We have been continuing to explore ancient civilizations this session, including Egypt, Greece, Rome, Macedonia, the Americas, India and China. Some notable characters have been Hatshepsut, Alexander the Great, Siddharta, Confucious, Julius Caesar, Odysseus, and Hannibal, to name just a few.

We took a break from ancient civilizations this week though and explored the meaning of the 4th of July. We discussed the Declaration of Independence, the fact that the people who voted for it were ordinary people just like us before arguably changing the world, the value of freedom vs. order, tyranny vs. chaos, how well have they balanced those in the studio via the systems they have created, and set the stage for next year’s question of the year: “when should a hero submit to authority?”

Core Skills

Even though we are in our last session and at times, really feeling the summer fever, the heroes have actually accelerated their progress on core skills this session. We attribute that to setting more specific and measurable SMART goals each morning! They have been incredibly focused!

Today, the heroes filled in where they are in their badge plans (they have a binder with a visual badge plan and milestones they can color in). Ask your hero how they are doing. They are welcome to bring home their binder. Next year we will work with the older heroes to get in the habit of posting to Journey Tracker (JT) and I’m going to add a JT link to our website.

Since they were here for half a year, we don’t expect them to complete all the badges at their level this year. They are moving more rapidly now though, and have the hang of Acton, so we expect core skills to progress well next year! That said, children’s progress isn’t linear – usually more like step stones – so expect bumps and stalls and rocket ships next year at different times.

Quest

The children started designing and building their final toy for the exhibition today. Each hero has chosen a physics concept and is building a toy that utilizes that concept. Ask your child what they chose. Or maybe they will want to keep it a surprise for the exhibition 🙂

Earlier this week they had a tower-building contest. The team that could build the tallest tower, that could hold the most weight, using the fewest parts, without the use of glue or fasteners, won! Ask your child how they approached this challenge! They all did a great job. 

We have learned about a lot of heroes throughout this quest: Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Joseph Hersher, Ole Kirk Christensen (inventor of LEGOs), Rube Goldberg, Arvind Gupta and many others. After we learn about a hero, we take time to describe their character traits and see if we can embody them during the quest project.

Today, for instance, we learned about Ole Kirk Christensen, the inventor of LEGOs, whose business had many ups and downs. The heroes discussed how he didn’t give up, and how much care he took to create high quality toys. Having these discussions has helped the children take a growth mindset approach to the challenges in the makerspace, so that even when they fail, they can appreciate what they have learned through the process. And there have been many failures during this quest. And also a lot of fun!

Pitch a Field Trip – Writer’s Workshop Persuasive Writing

This week, the heroes pitched their field trip ideas to each other. Wingra Boats won! 

The initial challenge was to research and pitch a field trip within a few main parameters:

1. Within 20 minutes of school via walking and bus
2. $10 or less per hero (funded by Acton)
3. Open during the school day 
4. What to do if there is rain

The three options that emerged were the Zoo, Wingra Boats and the Geology Museum.

The children are planning to walk and take the bus to Wingra Boats where they will rent canoes for an hour. We’ve budgeted $10 for each child which is enough for the boat rentals. They may also choose to make the 20 minute trek to the playground at Wingra Park, or Vilas Beach, and/or Henry Vilas Zoo, in which case they may want to bring additional money for ice cream, train ride and carousel ride. That is 100% optional, however. They will be doing more research together this Friday as a group to determine a specific itinerary, so ask your child(ren) what they decide!

Quest – Newton’s Physics of Toys

Physics of Toys continues! The last three quest activities have involved simple machines. The children have learned about the six types of simple machines and then were challenged to utilize simple machines in building a rube goldberg machine.

The steps were scaffolded over three days. First, two teams built large marble runs. Then for Friday reward, we had pajama, popcorn and movie day, and watched a “Bill Nye the Science Guy” episode on simple machines to learn more about pulleys, levers, ramps (inclined plane), wheel and axles, screws and wedges.

On Monday, their challenge was to build a compound machine that launched pennies using a lever and pully system out of materials from the makerspace. And on Wednesday, they learned about Rube Goldberg machines and were challenged to build one themselves.

They used the example of Joseph Hersher‘s page-turning machine and watched an brief example of a collegiate Rube Goldberg competition. They determined that the heroes who worked on these machines displayed perseverance, creativity and knowledge of science. So that’s what they measured their process against, rather than if they succeeded or not. Why? Because this was a very hard challenge that was more about the journey than the destination.

As a team of four, they worked to combine their two marble runs, use their compound lever/pulley machine to launch a marble into the marble run, and designed a connected machine to complete a task which was to ring a bell. Did they succeed? No. But they learned a lot about working as a team and had a fun time getting the individual components to work.

At the end of the week we explored Leonardo Da Vinci’s self-standing bridge designs.

360 Feedback and Setting Personal Goals

This Friday, the heroes will be setting personal goals based on the 360 feedback they received last week. We structure 360 feedback as “two stars and a wish.” It is a tremendously useful skill to be able to give and receive constructive feedback. Last week, our 360 review session was very respectful! As a note, the Guides are also included and we invite the heroes to give us feedback as well. Ask your child what they learned and what they are setting for their personal goal that they can work on for the last couple weeks of school into the summer. Even though we are late in the school year to do this, the exercise is still a great self-awareness builder and something we will build into the end of every session next year.

This weekly blog update is a little different this week. Ask your child(ren) what their favorite part of school was this week! In the meantime…..

Summer Reading

You may have seen the numerous articles today about continuing national math and reading test score declines. While COVID has certainly exacerbated learning loss in recent years, the decline has been occurring over decades. An ABC News article mentioned reading habits among middle schoolers, which I wanted to share with you because it was such a stark contrast to what we are seeing here at Acton Academy Madison West where the heroes love reading:

“Asked about their reading habits, fewer students than ever say they’re reading for fun every day. Just 14% reported daily reading for pleasure — which has been tied to better social and academic outcomes — down from 27% in 2012. Almost a third of students said they never or hardly ever read for fun, up from 22% in 2012.”

We plan to ask the heroes if they would like to design a group summer reading challenge, or simply set goals for themselves this summer to continue reading books for fun. As a parent, I’ve been thinking about this, too, and how we can integrate pleasure reading into our family routines. Maybe it’s 15-30 minutes of independent reading time before bed. Maybe it’s taking trips to the library or bookstore to find new and fun books that our children can read on their own. Perhaps it’s a book swap with friends, or reading books on long car and airplane rides instead of screens.

If you have any fun ideas for encouraging summer reading, we are excited to hear them and will share them amongst us all (maybe something we could talk about at the next parent coffee?). We are happy to loan out any books from our library here to support summer pleasure reading!

Service and Being Part of Something Bigger than Themselves

Over the last three or four weeks, we’ve been working hard to prepare to welcome six additional children into our school (potentially more) in the Fall. While that may not sound like a lot on its face, it means we have tripled enrollment. It also means we will run two studios: Spark and Discovery.

In addition to her guiding duties, our Guide has been working so hard to get the Spark studio ready: both physical space and learning design. And we’ve gone through a huge effort to shuffle around the spaces so that we now have shared free time, makerspace and library areas that both studios will use.

What does this mean for the learners? Again, putting my parent-hat on, I’m thrilled that our son gets to see a group of people starting from nothing and building something wonderful. And I hope that you are all as excited as I am that your children get to see that and be a part of it. We are so grateful that you parents took this leap with us.

A few things that got us really thinking about this:

• Yesterday, we had grandparents visit who asked the children what their favorite part of Acton is. They put it in terms of “rose, bud, thorn.” One learner said his rose was, “Acton is different. At other schools, the teacher tells you what you need to know. Here we figure it out for ourselves.” The Guide and I looked at each other and mentally high-fived 🙂
• All of them said their “bud” (something they are looking forward to) is having more learners. Hearing that made us really appreciate the leap of faith that the heroes have taken as well. It isn’t always easy going to a school of four. We are grateful to them for their willingness to put their trust in the future vision for their school.
• The heroes have been working very hard on the school, also! On some days a couple weeks ago, they helped us move charis, books and makerspace materials across rooms. Arguably, 80% of their time was spent riding a cart 🙂 BUT they were a huge help nevertheless.
• This week, they volunteered to help Ellie laminate and cut a couple hundred Montessori cards for the Spark studio. They have said they find the work “satisfying.” Meanwhile they are learning valuable lessons about helpfulness, work ethic and experiencing practical work, not just academic work.
• Two guests who have spent time in our studio have pulled me aside to comment about how they notice the children help and support each other.

These stories are examples of the life-skills and character-building that Acton heroes experience.

PS – the thorn was freedom level points violations 🙂