We kicked off the week with a birthday celebration! One of our heroes turned nine this week. We had a celebration borrowed from Montessori where she circled around the “sun” nine times, and after each revolution, her mom and sister shared a milestone from that year. It was such a nice way to honor her! After that, the children continued the celebration by making slime in the makerspace.
On Friday, one of our friends brought in baby chicks! The children spent their free time before school holding and petting the chicks. We also brought in board games for the Friday mystery reward, which was a lot of fun.
Socratic Discussions
The heroes are doing so well these days with Socratic discussions! They are building the habits of agreeing or disagreeing with the point previously made, building on that point, and using evidence and examples to back up their assertions, all while keeping an open- and changeable mind. It’s incredible and will only continue to get better.
Quest
This week the children continued their exploration of entomology and continued setting up insect habitats. This week they set up the mealworm habitats. Did you know mealworms are beetle larvae? At some point, the mealworms will hatch into beetles! It could take weeks or months, depending on the temperature. They are also closely watching the caterpillars which began forming chrysalides this week. In a few days, the children will be able to transfer them to the butterfly habitat where eventually the butterflies will emerge.
One theme during Quest this session has been the importance of reading instructions! Instructions provide a roadmap for our activities, and they help us plan in advance, especially as a team. They are also especially important to read and understand in order to keep our insects alive and thriving. Ask your hero(es) about the pop quiz they took this week!
Writer’s Workshop
The older heroes are making progress on their handwritten science-based fiction drafts. We spent our launches discussing idea development and rated a Magic School Bus story on the sub-traits of idea development. We explored what it means to “show” vs. “tell” in our writing. First we listened to an example of Roald Dahl describe a dirty beard in his book, The Twits. Then we played a game where one hero pulled an emotion on a slip of paper and had to act it out. Rather than guess the emotion, the other heroes wrote what they saw the acting hero do. For instance, “he scrunched up his body and made himself small. He brought his hands to his face and looked down. He was shaking a little.” That’s right, our hero was nervous!
Our younger heroes are not always as enthusiastic about free-writing, so this week they worked on their handwriting in their handwriting workbooks where they have the opportunity to write and illustrate silly sentences and play word games.
The expectations for earning a writing badge are different for all the heroes depending on the level where they are working. Some need to complete all the steps (pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing and publishing) in five writers’ workshops. Others need to complete all the steps in three writers’ workshops. The youngest children aren’t required to complete any yet, but we ask that they participate in discussions, do their best, and do meaningful work during the workshop time (they have other requirements for their badges – ask your hero what they are!).
Cursive Writing
A couple of our older heroes requested to learn cursive. They struggle to read cursive writing and thought it would be a useful skill, so we found some great cursive workbooks for them to get started with on their own. That’s what independent and lifelong learning is about: asking ourselves, what do I want to learn? And then gathering the resources to learn it.
Delegation
We set up a “delegation slider” in the studio this week so that we all can visualize what activities in the studio are the responsibility of the guides, and what are the responsibilities of the heroes. Over the past couple of weeks, heroes have been taking more responsibility over keeping each other accountable for participating and upholding the “rules of engagement” in discussions by assigning each other points for each discussion. They are also checking each other’s work in studio maintenance and determining when the work is complete and up to standard. They also have opportunities to keep discussion notes on the whiteboards and read stories to each other during some launches and landings (our end of day gathering).
Art
We learned about symmetry in art, and will spend the next few weeks creating symmetrical insect paintings. The heroes seemed to really enjoy this activity and we’re looking forward to using black acrylic glue next week…..
Phys. Ed.
Each hero set a personal PE goal for themselves this week and started working towards their goals on Thursday. Goals include getting better at kicking a soccer goal, getting better at handstands, getting more fit by running, and climbing a tree by themselves! We found another nearby park with soccer goals and climbing trees which seems to be a nice spot for working on their goals and exploring the neighborhood. We are fortunate to be surrounded by so many green spaces!
