11/29-12/5
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” Heroes are familiar with and love the holidays and traditions that they celebrate during this time of the year. But what does the rest of the world do during this time of year? And what does the rest of the world celebrate during the rest of the year? Both studios are exploring religions, celebrations and traditions around the world and are having “the most wonderful time” doing so!
In the Spark Studio... This session we are diving into traditions, holidays and religions around the world. We are exploring how traditions we practice today are influenced by the past. In our explorations we look at the people, activities, and food that are specific to that culture. In addition we are studying various countries in Europe. For exhibition, we will be hosting a German Christmas Market where we will be sharing a collection of handmade items representing traditions around the world.
The heroes are already enjoying making items for their exhibition. Trying to keep their creations at school until the exhibition has been a challenge. They are so excited to share with their parents.
This week we discovered the meaning behind the 8 candles on the menorah for Hanukkah, the different colored candles on the kenorah for Kwanza, and even tasted French macarons while practicing the correct pronunciation of the word. We learned about what Christmas in the United States looked like many years ago and some of our own family traditions.
Our new practical life, art and quest works are so very engaging. There hasn’t been enough time in the day for the heroes to do all of them! Even the books for this quest are fascinating. After looking through books about Chinese New Year, one young hero remarked “I love Chinese!” This hero didn’t know anything about the existence of China before this week.
This week we saw heroes working together to clean up spills and tidying the studio. We heard heroes providing support and encouragement to one other. We saw SO many heroes really challenging themselves in core skills and wanting to do harder works. We were introduced to Mrs. Distraction who likes to change our focus on our hero’s journey. Spark heroes were able to point out those distractions in one another, but more importantly help refocus fellow heroes.
It was a wonderful week!
In the Fire Studio... We started our session with a cultural experience going to a Holiday concert. Not many heroes could attend, but those who did enjoyed a marvelous (and for many, new) experience.
For this session the heroes are on a quest to throw the best holiday party ever! With the overarching purpose of expanding cultural awareness, sensitivity, and understanding, they are preparing to host a holiday party celebrating some less-familiar holidays. The heroes have spent this first week digging into the practices, beliefs, symbols, and traditions of six major religions around the world. They will spend the rest of this short 3-week session distilling their newfound understanding into a holiday party experience to share with their exhibition guests.
For two days heroes worked together with their squads to complete 6 research challenges. Many of the heroes discovered fascinating facts about their religion and were eager to share. Ask your hero something they discovered.
Heroes began creating invitations for their party by exploring and creating fonts this week in Writer’s Workshop. Watch the mail for an invitation later next week.
During Civ this week the heroes explored the crusaders and pilgrims to the Holy Land. In making their Lego caravans, they had to deal with the difficult dilemma of taking enough resources and money to survive, while not being so large as to attract the attention of thieves and marauders. They “journeyed” on land and water, rolling the dice to see what events occurred, and then determined their fate based on what they had decided to build and bring. Just a few heroes survived! A discussion about the Knights Templar and how they addressed this problem for pilgrims and crusaders wrapped up the engaging activity. Ask your heroes whether or not they would have trusted the Knights Templar.
The mindset “We can do hard things,” is a mindset we consistently try to expand at CHOICE. During jolliness this week the heroes practiced doing some hard things and were then challenged with journaling about hard things they have done physically, emotionally and mentally. Ask your hero what they chose to write about. Heroes also set session long excellence goals and taped them to wall so we can hold each other accountable.
It was a fantastic first week of a new session. We have many more experiences to look forward to over the next two weeks as it continues to be a “most wonderful time of the year!”