Christmas Cheer (Year 2, Week 11)

With a well lit Christmas Tree lighting up the studio, this week kicked off with a read of Horton Sits on an Egg. This Dr. Seuss book tells the story of Horton the Elephant who promises to sit on and look after the egg of Mayzie the Lazy Bird. Although he faces many situations in which he could abandon the egg, Horton stays true to his word and keeps his promise to Mayzie to keep looking after her egg. Horton explains: “I said what I meant and I meant what I said, and elephants faithful one hundred percent.”

This story kicked off the first launch of session 3 followed by a discussion about upholding the promises that you make. This session has been focused on affirming the promises made in the studio contract and re-launching and re-defining processes in the studio. More opportunities to learn about promises and accountability will be unfolded in following weeks.

Flow and Collaboration

The heroes have been focusing on spending the first hour of core skills in silent, individual work to help get in flow. The remainder of core skills time is collaborative in which the heroes can work together. The increase in focus and decrease in distraction during these times has been noticeable as the process has been more clearly defined for the heroes. Core skills has often been one of the most valuable times of the day, with heroes showing a lot of responsibility for their learning. With a few tweaks this time has become even more productive. Another improvement as the studio seeks more and more excellence.

Pitch-a-Field Trip

Last session the heroes unlocked the studio reward of pitching a field trip idea by reaching a group points goal in core skills. This session the heroes are excited to be working towards pitching their field trip ideas during the Pitch-a-Field Trip quest time.

Throughout this week the heroes have begun brainstorming their ideas and drafting their pitch. The heroes that complete all the quest challenges will be green-lighted to give their pitch at the end of session exhibition where guests will be able to vote on the pitch they believe was the most convincing. The winning idea will be our field trip next session!

Kindness Project

This week service and kindness have been highlighted in the studio as we are in the holiday season of thankfulness. Each Tuesday this session the heroes will be working on a kindness project — a way that they can show kindness in the community.

In groups the heroes brainstormed many ideas and then shared them together. Their ideas were varied, including: visiting and giving gifts to children in hospital, raking the leaves for people in the local neighborhood, visiting and helping out at a dog shelter, and writing letters to an orphanage.

After sharing and discussing their ideas the heroes voted on showing kindness to the local dog shelter. Next week they will work on planning what to take to the dog shelter and the following week we will plan to visit the shelter.

Civilizations and Game Time

To spend more time this Holiday season finding joy in learning and in friendships, some new additions to the schedule have been introduced this week: game time and civilizations. The game time afternoon blocks are a time for the heroes to play board games such as scrabble, baffle gab and math snap, or do puzzles. It is fun to watch the heroes interact during this time, problem solving together and practicing sportsmanship along the way.

Every Thursday afternoon is also now spent doing civilizations together. During this time the heroes will travel back in time to explore places and times throughout history, using “The Story of the World” book as our guide. This week they explored the early nomads and next week they will travel to ancient Egypt. They then discussed: which is a more reliable source for learning about history, historians or archaeologists?

As the heroes dive into history, they’ll have the opportunity to explore how history is created and the purposeful quest for truth.

Rules of Engagement

Which is better, snakes or turtles?

This was Tuesday’s launch discussion. This gave the heroes the opportunity to have a fun discussion, while practicing the rules of engagement. The rules of engagement are used to help the heroes have meaningful discussions wherein they can learn to take a stand, listen respectfully, speak clearly and think critically.

Badge Plans

This week badge plans were reintroduced into the studio with a greater emphasis on simplicity. Ironically, as the guides and heroes attempted to add badge plans online with journey tracker, it was all but simple. Many heroes found it unhelpful in its early stages. While we are still making an effort to dial in the online version, a simpler format was quickly created and shared with the heroes that was given much better feedback.

The purpose of badge plans is for each hero to know exactly where they are at and what they are working towards in the studio. Each badge is broken down into milestones (as you can see in the linked document) and celebrated when earned.

The heroes were excited to visually see there progress in the studio and energized to earn more badges.

You can see the full badge system here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XRbWdIPFYT8TziaONWPP7u9Mkju6j8zwcST62G5iuWA/edit?usp=sharing

Wrapping Up

It’s a wonderful time of year and the studio is full of Christmas cheer. Heroes Academy is full of wonderful heroes that can and will inspire you. They may not always show it, but there is so much to learn from these young heroes about giving, generosity, and good will. Thanks to all the parents who are raising such wonderful heroes.