Session 5, Week 1
Bilbo Baggins, The Seven Dwarves, King Arthur, Indiana Jones, Tom and Huck, Jason and the Argonauts, Alladin, Pirates, and us – what do we all have in common… we are all seeking treasure! Treasure comes in various forms; to some it is jewels and gold, to others it is friendship, to others it is knowledge or wisdom, to others it is love of self, and a million other things! In his explanation of the Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell explained how we find our treasure. He said: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” And what guards your treasure in those caves… dragons!!!
Dragons are fun to talk about at every age! This week the Spark Studio read There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight. We laughed as he swallowed everything, and then really laughed as he released everything except for the knight! We discussed how the dragon was different than what they expected. The DELTA heroes listened to a podcast discussing Joseph Campbell’s idea while drawing a dragon. Afterwards they each shared one of the real dragons in their lives.
All studios are going to enjoy exploring our school wide Session Question: “What is the real dragon?” And if you define treasure as friendship, knowledge, wisdom, experience, love or laughter, heroes discovered lots of treasure this first week of Session 5:
In the Spark Studio this session we are exploring what makes up a city and how businesses work in a community. We started out the week setting up our own mini library. We spent the week practicing alphabetizing in various ways.
One of our favorite “landings” this week was to hear the heroes complete these phrases: A city has _____. A community has ______. Some of their responses were: A city has buildings. A community has kindness. A city has people. A community has honesty. A city has stores. A community has people working together.
Many of our Montessori works this session are focused on understanding time and understanding money. Heroes are exploring grocery ads and counting coins to create enough money to buy a certain item. They are learning how to read digital and analog clocks and developing a better understanding of elapsed time.
We loved our field trip to the Public Library. Heroes had a tour showing us some duties of a librarian. They relished picking out a book to stock our mock library back at CHOICE.
In the Fire Studio Session 5 started with a little extra intrigue, as the freshly-elected Squad Leaders got to draw sticks to discover their new squads. Each studio had a choice: the sticks could be arranged to ensure that each squad had at least two older and two younger heroes OR the sticks could be combined for a complete luck-of-the-draw squad creation. Both studios chose to make it completely random–and random it was! Some squads are heavily older, some are heavily younger. Two squads are all boys except for one girl. But everyone accepted the unusual groupings with cheers and kindness, and the new squads have already begun growing in teamwork and strategy as they faced their first squad challenges, squad games, and squad meetings this week.
In Jolliness (wellness) this week, heroes were introduced to an Impolite Dragon and dug into the true meaning of good manners. Etiquette is not about seeming better than others or following a lot of random rules–it’s a way of being that helps those around you feel valued and comfortable. Strong social skills helps grow our friendships.
The Fire Studio started their new Quest this week with Partners instead of Squads, and more than a few blank walls which the Heroes have already started to fill. The Architecture/Clue Quest is going to be so dynamic with measuring on a scale ruler, blueprints, sketching, designing, and model building! Design elements and big picture thinking are already being considered by each partnership of “architects” as they began their designs of a new Acton Academy. This week, the heroes created team Avatars to travel from room to room on our new Clue Quest map and enjoyed playing Clue.
They scoured our building during a scavenger hunt looking for outlets, fuse boxes, etc and practicing measuring.
Heroes learned how to, and then practiced using a scale ruler.
They explored famous architects.
And on Thursday made stained glass windows to add some gorgeous color to the studio and enjoyed Thursday architect fun building many different structures!
The DELTA Studio
AI & Media: Will You Use It or Will It Use You? This is the focus of our launches in the DELTA Studio this session. This first week we explored how media has been a threat since the time of Plato (he was concerned about the invention of written language!) and how we can either try to avoid it, or be empowered in how to use it for good.
“How many of you love Chemistry?” One hand shot up. “Show me your love of chemistry using the scale of the ground to your head.” Most hands were very close to the ground. “Welcome to our new Quest… For the Love of Chemistry!” The goal of this quest is to grow the heroes’ love and appreciation of Chemistry through increasing their confidence that they can understand it and doing fun/cool Chemistry things. Each day they have a Learn component and a DO component.
After exploring the Periodic Table for their Learn, heroes performed a flame test for their DO. The flame test involves predicting what color a compound will burn based upon the elements it contains. And then burning it! They had a glorious time. One hero particularly negative towards Chemistry said “I didn’t know fire and burning things was Chemistry… this is awesome!”
Thursday afternoon we went outside in the sunshine with chalk. I asked a Chemistry question they explored during the week, and then gave the heroes 30 seconds to draw or write the answer. I wasn’t sure which was more exciting: the fact that most of them had understood most everything, or they way heroes could and would explain it to those that didn’t understand. We also had a few “extra” questions/races mixed in.
The final question was “What are two words that explain your feelings about Chemistry this week.” Their answers were variations of: “Accomplished” “Excited” “Really good!” For the Love of Chemistry is off to a good start!
While writing this blog takes some time, I love reviewing all the awesome things that happen every week at CHOICE. And as I have reviewed this first week of Session 5, I am fairly certain that if trends continue, we will be facing lots of dragons and finding lots of treasure this session!