Finding Stillness
(Year 3 Week 16)
A Moment For Gratitude
Every Monday the heroes eat their frogs. They pick out one of their more challenging tasks that they want to conquer and they work all week to reach that goal. Along with their frog, they have added another element to their Monday morning meetings. They continued with the practice of gratitude from last session. After their five minutes of stillness, the heroes met on the rug to do their gratitude practice. This week they were challenged to write down five things that they were grateful for in their lives. As always, the heroes surprised the guides by getting down to business and writing more than five things.
Their lists included their family, friends and pets. Some of the lists included nature, earth and Australia. It was eye-opening to see how aware the travelers are to what is going on in the world. The travelers opened up about how they sometimes don’t realize how grateful they are for things until it is gone. Their gratitude practice had them feeling sentimental and passionate about doing their part to protect the things they are grateful for.
Pride in the Studio
Last session, the heroes struggled with studio maintenance. There were many mornings they walked in to see the garbage overflowing, broken books and bathrooms not maintained. There were some ups and downs and many conversations surrounding the care that goes into maintaining a clean and cared for space.
This session the heroes walked in with a lot of pride and determination. They decided to split the studio into two sections. Group one in area one and group two in area two. They elected two heroes to be in charge of the flow of studio maintenance and checking off their fellow heroes. Since the start of the session, the studio has never looked cleaner. Desks are cleaned up, chairs pushed in and zero-unnecessary damage done to the studio. During reflections, the guide asked the hero what changed? One hero stepped up and said, “It was just a mess and we were taking it for granted.” The heroes all nodded in agreement. Sometimes it just takes a few trials and errors to get it right.
New Library
Passion projects were introduced to the heroes this session. No matter their freedom level, they are able to create, participate or make something to feature at exhibition. This is their chance to be able to use their creativity to build anything that they can dream up. It has been a very motivational time in the studio. The motivation has spilled over into other areas.
This week, two of the heroes introduced their personal library. They brought in 51 books between them and are hoping to get more. They designed library cards, they worked on creating a system for check out and are accepting any donations from their fellow heroes. They put up signs around the studio and have planned their grand opening for Monday, the 27th. They are hoping to make a profit off of their library to buy more books and things they want in the studio. Our budding entrepreneurs will be featured in next weeks Heroes Academy News.
Quest
Stop Motion moved along quickly during the week. The heroes were challenged to finish their 3–5 minute videos and many of them got down to business. Heroes who didn’t have anything filmed finished their entire video and were working on credits and introductions. Some of the heroes lost footage and had to re-film but they were intentional about time and focused for the entire afternoons that were dedicated to quest.
For the heroes who finished their films, they were then voted into leadership roles for exhibition. During quest they moved into the final phases of planning. The heroes hoped to get more video footage filmed and are trying hard to figure out how to convert their videos to make them playable on the big screen. They are also gathering and coordinating all of their material that they want to showcase at exhibition. Between their videos, stories and handwriting samples, they have been kept busy.
Wrap-Up
The heroes had a jam packed week in only four short days. Heroes finished quest, started new Writer’s Workshop stories and improved their handwriting skills. Exhibition roles were accounted for and core skills time was intentional. Heroes pushed hard to get badges done and were shocked at how fast the session flew by. There are only two weeks left until exhibition and they worked hard all week to be ahead of the game. They were all very excited to know that they get to present their exhibition at the movie theater. The guides are equally excited to see what fun ideas they will come up with come exhibition.
