With the warmer weather, the children have been opting to play in the creek in Nakoma Park. We recommend wearing to school or sending some water shoes (water shoes or water-resistant sandals) for outdoor time. They also are enjoying climbing on the playground equipment!
Back to School!
The heroes did a great job of setting back into routines after this break. The Guides were impressed with how smoothly it went!
At the end of each day, a hero shared a photo from their Spring Break and presented to the group about their time off. They also updated their 1000 Hours Outside tracker. One hero added 40 hours after much hiking in Southern Utah!
Core Skills
They are in the rhythm of core skills, which is great! This week and next week, the Guides are meeting with each hero to discuss exactly where they are in their badge plan and apps, and set goals for the next two sessions. We will send these goal sheets home to parents. We feel like this could be an eye-opener for our older learners and shed some light on work habits and overarching goals. We are also working with our older learners to start utilizing Journey Tracker (ask them to bring their logins home and walk you through their badge plan!) to track their progress.
One balance we are working to strike is between working towards points and badges and ensuring that they also enjoy learning. Ultimately, what matters is that they are doing meaningful work. If they are, the points and badges will take care of themselves.
At the same time, we notice some of them jumping around from app to app, or choosing the same task they have mastered over and over again, to avoid doing hard things. So we think that these detailed goal meetings will help them develop 1) a vision for what they want to accomplish, and 2) a roadmap for accomplishing it, even if it means they have to pass through some challenging trials along the way!
Volunteering Activity
The church where we are housed holds a large rummage sale each year to raise money for local charities. The children opted to use their Friday Reward time this week to volunteer to help set up the rummage sale. They got to set-up the kids / toys area and were awarded a V.I.P. early shopping experience. They were thrilled 🙂
Athletics / Phys. Ed.
We felt like we needed to up our game in the Phys Ed department, so we’ve enlisted the help of Kathryn Kraft this session. Let’s just say today’s PE session was a success! The children had a lot of fun. They also learned about resting and non-resting heart-rates, and role-played children in ancient civilizations who didn’t have access to today’s soccer balls or playground equipment. How did they keep from being bored 5000 years ago? Over the next six weeks their goal is to collaboratively come up with a game they can play that utilizes no modern equipment. It’s a great exercise in collaboration and creating structure for themselves and ties in with our studies of Ancient Civilizations!
Here is Kathryn’s bio:
Kathryn Kraft is a pediatric physical therapist with a passion for connecting youth to the world of health and wellness through exploration and excitement. She has personal experience guiding soldiers on their fitness journey as a Captain in the WI Army National Guard, as well as discovering her own physical capabilities as a previous member of the UW Women’s Hockey team and USA Women’s Bandy team. After working in public schools for the last 7 years, Kathryn sees the importance of sparking interest in movement before teaching specific skills and aims to uncover the goals and aspirations of Acton’s heroes on their physical education journey. She is also mother to one of our heroes joining the Spark studio in the Fall.
We are grateful to have Kathryn join our team!
STEAM / Art
As we study ancient civilizations, it’s impossible not to keep coming back to Egypt. This week and next we are learning about the Middle and New Kingdom’s of Egypt. The heroes requested that we mummify something, so this week we made canopic jars using modeling clay, pringles containers and paints. Canopic jars were used to hold and preserve the organs of mummified humans. After the jars are complete, we will “mummify” apples inside the jars and test and observe how well different preserving agents work over several days (e.g. salt, sugar, baking soda, vinegar).
Entomology Quest!
Bugs! We are learning about arthropods including insects, arachnids and scorpions. This week was challenging because we dove straight into taxonomy and classification. There was some resistance and struggle, but much joy when we heard the words, “I think I’m getting this now!”
The other challenge about this Quest overall is that the heroes are working as a team. They learned that it can be a good idea to read all the instructions before diving into a project 🙂 They are also struggling with how to organize themselves when their teammates skills and motivation are varied. The Guides will use launch times to equip them with the skills they need to work collaboratively.
We expect the next few weeks to be more accessible for all. We’ll be building “super bugs,” building habitats and raising insects, designing butterfly gardens, and conducting field studies in the park and on school grounds.
Writer’s Workshop
The genre this session is science-based fiction! This week, the heroes are learning research best-practices as they research their topic of interest and develop a list of facts that they will weave into an illustrated fiction story. Ask your child what topic they chose!
