What a fun week back in Discovery to kick-off the new year! This session, the heroes are embarking on explorations of mathematics, the middles-ages, coding and robotics, gratitude, passion projects, learning-to-be badges and taking responsibility for their own journey meetings with parents.
Mathematics Exploration
We consistently work to integrate mathematics into everything that we do in the Discovery studio. For instance, asking the heroes to total and average up their own points to calculate their core skills “freedom level.” This week they learned about “pro ration” and how to pro-rate their points for a three-day week.
This session though, we are explicitly exploring mathematics through a few challenges. The first is the “Be Sal Khan” challenge where the heroes can choose to use ClipChamp to create a math lesson video which will be shared at the exhibition. There is arguably no better way to learn a concept than to have to teach it.
We are also closing the days with math fluency games, like speed math BINGO, and math books like Sir Cumference series and the Multiplying Menace, to just name a few.
Finally, both the Discovery and Spark heroes will explore mathematics in art. Ms. Lauren, our art specialist, has planned an entire session dedicated to concepts like symmetry, geometry, patterns, hidden numbers, and fractions.
We also continue to have a math power hour every Friday where the children play challenging math games!
Coding & Robotics Quest
This session the Discovery Heroes launched the coding and robotics quest. They are completing a course on code.org and learning logical block coding. They seem to be having a blast because a number of them made the choice to code during their free time. Over the course of the quest, the children will also engage in some “unplugged group challenges” to explore concepts like loops, conditionals and variables. Finally, they will build and program Mbots towards the end of the session!
Fascination Friday
This sessions’ “Fridays Reward” will come in the form of “Fascination Fridays.” A number of the children have passion projects they would like to pursue, and this is a block of time where they can focus on those passions. Two children are working to launch a drama club and would like to put on a play – they were inspired by the partner plays they did during the Ancient Athens quest. One chose to spend his Fascination Friday coding. And two others spent the time in the makerspace practicing bubble letters and using the lightbox to draw famous ships like the Titanic and Edmund Fitzgerald. He may make a coloring book out of the outlines to sell at the upcoming Acton Children’s Business Fair.
Gratitude and Learning to Be Badges
As a group, the heroes are exploring gratitude through this session’s communications challenge: a gratitude letter. In order to brainstorm things they are grateful for, the heroes started a gratitude wall which they will keep going this week.
Each hero also chose a Learning to Be badge to focus on this session. A few chose the gratitude badge which requires them to complete a significant number of character callouts of their fellow heroes!
Civilization
In Civilization, we completed the Ancient Times book and will start now on the Middle Ages. It’s the fall of Rome, and now Britain, and its population of barbarians, is emerging as the new European power. During civilization, the children work on coloring pages related to the topic, and then engage in a formal Socratic discussion about the text. In future sessions, we will build in some civilization research challenges!
Upcoming Journey Meetings
In the spirit of taking responsibility for their own learning, the Discovery heroes will be setting new goals for the next two sessions and preparing to hold their own journey meetings with their parents at home. The journey meetings will focus primarily on core skills, how they are moving through their badge plans, and demonstrating that they are in charge of, and care about their learning and growth!
