This week was exhibition week! The Discovery heroes worked hard to prepare for the final lemonade “stand-off” with the Sparks, bringing together all they had learned through this five-week entrepreneurship quest: company formation, brand and image creation, market research and calculating costs and risks.
Hero Talk
Joe McGrath, photographer, videographer, animator, and founder of NextWave Visuals, came to the studio to share his hero’s journey with the children. This is what we call a “hero talk.”
Joe shared examples of his work and talked about his challenges and triumphs as an entrepreneur. The children were especially curious about his animation work. They asked him how he does it (uses software), and how he learned. Joe learned videography in college, but taught himself animation by watching and practicing along with YouTube videos during the pandemic. He discussed how a short animated video can take a month to create, but with persistence he’s become better and better at this craft.
Asked what his advice for the young heroes is: persistence. Starting a business can be really hard initially, but it gets easier over time as you learn more and more about what you are doing.
What’s his biggest challenge: marketing and getting customers to commit.
Why did he want to learn animation: to differentiate his business from other photographers/videographers who don’t offer that service.
Who has more authority? the company or customers? (related to our question of the year): In Joe’s business, he feels he – the company – has more authority because customers need to trust him as the creator to know what looks good in the videos he creates.
Joe was surprised to learn that many of the heroes at Acton have experience running a business, too! Several of them have participated in one or more Children’s Business Fairs selling items like all-natural bath products, art, artistic goods, upcycled picture frames, and 3D-printed toy train tracks. And this week: lemonade!
The Lemonade Stand-Off
The Discovery heroes sold homemade snack mix, and fresh-squeezed plain and strawberry lemonade. They had a few days this week to create programs, set-up their stands, make and package snack mix, and make lemonade. All together, they made $84 studio bucks of profit which will now go to purchasing something for the school!
The day after the exhibition, the Discovery heroes reflected upon what went well and what did not go as well preparing for, and during, the exhibition. One area of weakness was project planning. The heroes were rushed to get the lemonade made in time for the stand-off. They lost sales opportunity by not being ready to sell when customers arrived. They would like to work on planning and project management skills – setting to-dos, deadlines, delegation and assigning specific roles – during upcoming exhibitions. What wonderful skills to be developing at such a young age!
Six-Word Memoirs
The heroes read and presented their six-word memoirs – inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story – as part of the exhibition. Often, writing succinctly, is much more challenging than writing long-form. Throughout the last five weeks, the children brainstormed creative words to use for the subject, verb, direct object, adjectives and adverbs in their memoirs. Then they experimented with theme, word choice, and structure in their memoirs. Ultimately, they seemed to capture themselves very well in just six words!
Up Next
Next session’s quest is “Experiencing History: Acton Athens.” We can’t wait!
