Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
We had a leprechaun visit this week! He seemed to be after some gold coins that two heroes had left at the bottom of a leprechaun trap they built together in the makerspace. Unfortunately, the leprechaun was too sneaky, and got the gold coins but escaped the trap and left mayhem in his wake. Ask your hero(es) what they think happened!
Town Hall This Week
At Town Hall this week we had a request to incorporate reading aloud into D.E.A.R. (which is generally quiet independent reading time). We are going to experiment with this and add a D.E.A.R. block to the week during which heroes may read aloud to each other. Some are more excited about being read to, than reading aloud to a friend, so we will see how this plays out. It’s a great idea for building reading fluency (for the reader) and building language and vocabulary (for the listener).
Memoirs / Self-Portraits
The heroes have drafts of their various memoirs and we will work next week to revise and compile them into a short book! We also went through a critique process for self-portraits and finished those up this week.
Athletics
Our Guide has been leading a yoga unit over the past couple weeks and will continue until the end of the session next week. I included a photo or two of the heroes doing tree pose! They have been great sports about it and seem to enjoy yoga!
1000 Hour Outdoor Challenge
Last week, we introduced the 1000 Hour Outdoor Challenge! Heroes are tracking their hours outside each day, including outside time at home and on weekends. Once they reach 1000 hours as a group, they will be able to choose and plan an outdoor field trip on the bus line.
Business Fair
The children are all so excited for the Business Fair! This weekend heroes wrote their sales pitches and practiced them with friends, and in the mirror on their own. It has been so fun to watch them bring their businesses to life. We’ve also noticed their confidence growing as they have been able to take an idea, and create something tangible from it. Next, it is time to test it in the marketplace! There is no guarantee of success, and these heroes are courageous for putting themselves out there and risking failure. We celebrate that!
On Thursday, the children helped with Fair set-up which they enjoyed. They stuffed goodie bags for participants, placed them on tables along with table numbers, then did a walk-through of the space and determined what signage was needed for shoppers, and then created the signs. You will see them posted around tomorrow!
You probably already have, but don’t hesitate to continue to spread the word about the fair! We had 40 booth applicants and only 24 booths, which we were very happy about because there is clearly interest in participating in the event. Now we’ve been working hard to make sure we have shoppers via marketing partnerships with sponsors and judges, our own advertising on social media and event marketing, and a brief TV interview that’s going to air early Saturday AM. We are so pleased with the interest we’ve seen so far, and are cautiously optimistic that we will have good shopper turnout. We feel like we’ve done all we can do and now need to see who shows up.
Kudos to Ellie for really running the fair and pulling in sponsors and judges!!! She has been hard at work when she isn’t in the classroom.
Core Skills
Learners are beginning to embrace their badge plans and beginning to get in the routine of tracking their weekly S.M.A.R.T. goals and daily points earned. It’s all about practice and habit. It’s great to see them building these habits because it means they will have the tools they need to take responsibility over their own learning. After a while the Guides will turn more and more over to them without reminders. We also see them more easily dropping into “Flow” each day. There are still some days where there are struggles and challenges, but these are the positive trends we see!
Badge Ceremonies
This is something we will be rolling out next week and we think will generate excitement and motivation around working towards badges. So stay tuned!
