As usual, this week was a lot of fun!
E-Ship Quest:
The heroes are displaying a lot of enthusiasm for their businesses! Next week, please bring prototype materials, product packaging materials and/or booth decor materials. On Monday, they will have the opportunity to either work on their prototypes, packaging or booth decor and signage (the booth is an 8′ table). They will continue to work on these on and off up until the business fair on March 18th, so they don’t need to bring everything at once. We will spend 2 – 3 hours this week working on those elements.
Note: when your children applied to the business fair, they made the following promise:“I promise that the work on my business was done by me, that I earned our entry fee and that I will repay any loans required to launch my business, such as materials and marketing/signage expense.”
This week heroes explored unit economics by role-playing in a game called “Sally the Seller.” It was through our exploration of unit economics that one team of heroes decided to pivot their business and focus on a different product. Good learning! We also explored the costs and benefits of hiring employees by playing a simulation game called RoboRush. Finally, on Friday, heroes made watermelon popsicles using two manufacturing processes: artisan-making and assembly line. They measured the results. Ask your learner(s) what they discovered about quality control and how they enjoyed their watermelon popsicles!
Organizational Jeopardy / Core Skills
The Guide created a fun jeopardy game to help the heroes diagnose for themselves where they need improved organizational systems. They now have a binder for each core skill: reading, math, writing and spelling & grammar. They also have a badge plan binder where they can track their S.M.A.R.T. goals and progress on their badge plan. They are still figuring out the badge plans and figuring out the answer to the questions: “why does this matter?” We will be reaching out to schedule Journey Meetings with parents and learners prior to Spring Break, and we will also be brainstorming badge rewards / celebrations with the heroes to create a system of extrinsic motivation.
Civilization
We wrapped up our exploration of Ancient Egypt this week. We had a lot of fun learning about mummies, pyramids and early writing forms across a number of civilizations (Sumerians, Mesopotamians and Egyptians). Art this week was dedicated to making modern-day papyrus and decorating the papyrus with hieroglyphics. They also each received a real papyrus bookmark that they can use for D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read).
Writers’ Workshop
The childrens are exploring memoirs and one of the biggest challenges has been dealing with writers’ block. We’ve discussed strategies for overcoming writers’ block such as brainstorming our ideas in advance, and letting go of perfectionism when writing since we can always revise later. This seems to have helped because two of our older learners are choosing to use part of their core skills time to journal and write stories. Ask your child about their writing process!
Montessori Elements
Some of you may know that our Guide is completing her Montessori certification and we are investing in Montessori materials for the Spark studio. This week, Ellie introduced the Montessori letters to our younger learners and they REALLY enjoyed it. It’s made the writers’ workshops more accessible to them. After building a sentence on the writing mat, they translate it into their journal or onto their laptop. It provides a writing model once they have built the sentence. And provides a hands-on alternative to Chromebooks.
We are developing a Montessori area in the Discovery Studio so children can explore math and writing this way.
Personal Growth
Lots of growth happening! At Town Hall this Friday, we discussed why studio maintenance is important, how we should assign jobs, and what we should do when a friend isn’t helping with studio maintenance. There was a discussion of consequences, and should there be a “punishment” for not contributing? What if a person knows ahead of time what the consequences will be? Then isn’t it their choice? We settled on tying contribution to studio maintenance to our Friday Mystery Reward activity. If a hero isn’t contributing to studio maintenance daily, then they will not participate in the Friday Mystery Reward activity. The Guides are betting studio maintenance participation will increase dramatically.
The heroes also conducted 360 reviews – we call this “full circle feedback.” This is something we will do at least once a session. This session we will do it twice and then at the end of every session going forward. Heroes and Guides gave and received feedback (two stars and a wish) to each other. Some feedback was surprising! Like when we think we are being funny, but it might actually be hurtful to a friend. Or how our refusal to participate in an activity negatively affects other heroes’ ability to learn and have fun. Or how we wish a hero would talk more in discussions because they have great things to say and we want to hear! Or how we admire others’ persistence and can-do attitude.
Next week they will each set one personal growth goal to work on until the end of this session.
