Session 4, Week 5
We are never too old for the zoo! Laughter erupted as the Ostrich chased two zebras all around their enclosure. Curiosity was high as heroes peered into the glass trying to find the camouflaged lizards and snakes. Heroes were entranced as the polar bear put on a show 2 inches from their faces. And I’m pretty sure we have more pictures of heroes climbing and posing on the statues than with any of the live animals! Exploring the zoo for a few hours with the Fire Studio was delightful! Even more delightful is knowing that exploration is a daily occurrence for the heroes whether they are at the zoo or at school.
Between the final GRIT challenge to the zoo, a messy and creative paper mache art experience with Paul – cleaning up the messy and creative art experience, and heroes volunteering to plan next weeks’ exhibition and Valentine’s celebration, the Fire Studio was full of exploration and energy this week.
In Jolliness (mental and emotional wellness), heroes explored the super power of creativity. The guide yelled out a random job or profession, and the heroes yelled back ways creativity would be used in that field. Heroes also thought about ways they use creativity in their journey, and discovered a new favorite circle game: Yes, AND!
We also enjoyed three hero-guided launches, which were well-prepared and engaging for the studio–further showing the heroes and the world how capable young people are when adults get out of the way!
As part of the Spark Studio’s Architecture Quest, heroes have been exploring famous architecture structures all over the world. This week, the heroes were challenged to work together in groups to recreate a famous structure. Their creativity was magical as always and it was great seeing some learners explore joining forces with someone they hadn’t teamed up with before.
Monday and Tuesday were extremely windy during outside time! Many spark heroes explored using our usual materials in the high winds. Some were trying to fly away!
Exploring a new material this week, prompted a hero to open and operate a golf club rental shop during CHOICE work cycle. So many of the other spark heroes were happy to support the business.
A brief exploration into impressionism and Monet encouraged some beautiful impressionism style artwork
A challenge to push further outside their comfort zone during Montessori work cycle resulted in heroes exploring Montessori works they had never tried before. Being in our challenge zone typically leads to joy, excitement and frustration – and then the opportunity to work through the frustration! Heroes found that math works they thought were too hard were actually really fun. And that their friends were more willing to try something hard with them.
It is so fun to watch Spark heroes explore language each day. As heroes get excited to explore books because they can read more of the words, their love of reading develops or grows. As heroes discover more ways to communicate with others through writing their own stories and notes for each other, their confidence grows.
The DELTA Studio had their once a session Deep Book launches. I recognized how good some of these heroes are getting at creating Socratic questions as I listened to heroes asking one another Socratic questions that explored different themes in each of their different books. I have seen the simple act of being able to choose their own books engage some heroes in reading who haven’t engaged before – and keep the interest of other heroes who had been held back before.
DELTA heroes explored Social and Emotional difficulties the past two weeks. They played a new game “Awkward moments,” spent some time recognizing which emotions were less comfortable for them to feel, and took turns convincing one another why we should hide or express our emotions.
One of my favorite things to do is walk through the studio during Quest time and see heroes who are truly engaged in their individual explorations:
On Thursday our family explored the progress of the new school building! It was a big day so we wanted to share!
We are going to start updating on our social media so you can follow the progress of the build.
One of our 5 Core Beliefs at CHOICE (as stated on our website), is that “Childhood is a time of preparation, discovery, and JOY. School should be a time of preparation, discovery, and JOY.” Through their explorations heroes are enjoying that discovery and joy each day!