Quest
This week we continued our “Newton’s Physics of Toys” quest. Last week, they built gravity-powered cars and tested them and competed in teams using a ramp. This week, the heroes built balloon-powered cars to explore the concepts of thrust and propulsion. The focus was Newton’s third law: that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
On Wednesday, we had a collaborative challenge where each team tested their car at different weights (using pennies) and created a car performance guide for the other team. Each team swapped cars, and both teams together competed on accuracy, trying to get less than 10′ cumulatively from the “X” marked on the floor. They had the choice between using a balloon-powered car or gravity-powered car. Both teams chose gravity because it was easier to isolate more variables using the ramp whereas how much the balloon was blown up was harder to measure. Way to go scientific method!
Disappearing Guide Game
We had a lot of fun this week playing the “Disappearing Guide Game.” In the spirit of encouraging heroes to become curious, independent, lifelong learners (one of our promises), we set a week-long challenge. If the heroes won, they earned time on Friday to play board games (a way to learn math skills, by the way!).
The heroes earned a point if a Guide answered their question. The Guides won a point if a hero asked them a question before checking “three B’s before G.” That means, check your brain, check a book, and check a buddy, before asking a Guide.”
It got pretty competitive, and the heroes won. But the Guides will have the opportunity to redeem themselves next week 🙂
The heroes chose “Ticket to Ride” as their board game, which we love because it teaches addition, geography and strategic thinking.
Core Skills
The Guide sat down with each learner this week to develop their new S.M.A.R.T. goals for the session. These should be coming home to you for you to see! Ask your child how he or she decided what to focus on!
We have also been focusing on setting more specific daily S.M.A.R.T. goals. Rather than saying, “I’m going to work on Khan Academy for 45 minutes,” we have been working on using the S.M.A.R.T. framework to set goals more like, “I’m going to master two skills on Kahn Academy by the end of Core Skills today which is 1.5 hours.” Now THAT is a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
At the end of each core skills session, the heroes come together and reflect on what they achieved and if their S.M.A.R.T. goal(s) put them in their comfort, challenge, or panic zone. One learner said today, “When I have the ‘complete four circles’ goal in Dreambox it really helps push me!”
Writers’ Workshop
The children have been super motivated for this session’s writer’s workshop. This week, they chose one field trip idea (out of the three they researched) and fleshed it out in outline form, then wrote it up as a pitch. Next week they will practice their pitches verbally, so they will soon be ready to deliver their pitches and vote on their field trips. Persuasive writing and presenting is a wonderful and useful life skill!
Music
Music was a lot of fun this week! Ms. Christa shared her hero talk with us this week about how she had taken early music lessons, but after her teacher died, she taught herself music starting in fifth grade. Music has been her calling ever since!Â
The children learned about beats and rhythm, as well as music notes. The children are enjoying it immensely, and one of them has talked with his parents about taking music lessons! We love seeing heroes develop new interests that they want to pursue and explore more. This is how they will all eventually find their callings.
