Session 6: Year 5, Week 25 In Review
chatgpt, grief, and mystery
Check out this week’s updates…
spark studio
The method of education we offer is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play.
In the studio, learners make creative choices in their learning, while the highly trained guides offer age-appropriate activities to guide the process. Learners work in groups and individually to discover and explore the knowledge of the world and to develop their maximum potential. Some activities, such as Quest work, are written yet can change at any given moment to accommodate the needs of the learners.
The studio is a beautifully curated environment designed to ensure just that … we meet the needs of learners in a specific age range to meet them exactly where they are at in their learning. This all plays into the outcome of building a strong community. We have become like family. Through this creative process, we are all learning the four pillars our school is built upon, and we are uniting. Think about how we may apply these pillars to home life; they tie in quite nicely.
We are experiencing the richness on our journey through The Land of the Parts of Speech. Take math word problems, for instance. Do you see the connection between math and parts of speech? We practiced our first-word problem in groups of 3. The challenge was to find the answers to the questions and meet back as a group to discover how each group came to their end result. Several different methods were used to accomplish the goal.
We cannot wait to share the details during this session’s exhibition. We hope to captivate your attention to the details and intricacies of our everyday building blocks.
Chick update: We are on the countdown…10 days to go! Two upper elementary heroes joined us for a launch to share their knowledge of the life cycle of a chicken. We even got to take a peek at the eggs through the light on top of the incubator, candling, they call it. :) We saw veins and movement, and according to the learners, it made them feel weird, happy, cool, and curious.
elementary studio
Week 2 has been busy!
In Civ, heroes have been learning about Early European Explorers and Native Americans. We created a timeline, researched different explorers and Native American tribes, and used sugar cubes to create replicas of a Spanish Mission and a Mississippian Period Indian Mound.
In Story Arts, the heroes continued working on their children’s books, and in Quest, we used the Design Thinking process to create Leprechaun Traps! We also started working on our big project for this session, Designing the Spark Outdoor Classroom and Garden! We can’t wait to see what we come up with!
middle school studio
Let’s keep moving forward to the end.
The studio has been in such a great mood and the learners have set a culture of just staying in the flow with all the great things the schedule has to offer. We started this week off with Story Arts. In Story Arts, the studio learned more about the importance of Ted Talks and learned different techniques to make theirs a success.
Learners tackled different skills with ChatGPT. As they continued their research, they created Art with AI. This experience for them was very interactive. The entire studio had different ideas on how they created their drawings. They learned about Scribble Diffusion or AI Paint as the week went by. In that challenge, they used their real-life interest in careers and colleges to see how ChatGPT could give them more insight. Most of the heroes found out that ChatGPT helped them think of different ways to accomplish their purpose. We had an expert that chatted with the studio online on how different platforms can help with AI art.
Every day we incorporate Writing Fundamentals into the schedule to guide the learners to understand and properly use different types of punctuation. This week we went over commas and how they are used in different formats. We then concluded with the learning game Khoot. All learners were engaged and excited to earn their reward from their Guide.
Furthermore, we added Servant Leader and Launch Building into the schedule, so each hero has the opportunity to get their badges done effectively. In Civilization, the challenge was about the Southern Renaissance and the importance of the history back then, followed by a Makers Challenge.
high school studio
"Slow and steady wins the race," they say, which is the case for us this week.
Monday started very slow, only ten heroes were in the studio, and the learning was very deep and individualized via Story Arts. While it was very peaceful and enjoyable, it only lasted for that one day. The rest of the week took off!
Tuesday, for Quest, we explored a little acting. Since this Quest is the famous "Murder Mystery" Quest, we are taking some time and a few challenges to explore grief and bereavement. Tuesday's challenge had heroes explore the most effective ways to deliver bad news to others. We applied it to real life by creating a monologue and acting out suitable methods of delivery and wrong ways of delivery. It was enlightening and entertaining, to say the least.
Wednesday, our Quest focused on anticipating grief, was a tough challenge. As a studio, we explored a couple in which one of them had cancer and was given a date for passing. Instead of wasting their days in anguish, they lived it to the fullest until the end. As for the task, all the heroes had to plan a month of fun and adventure for a loved one that is passing from a terminal illness. It truly hit home for many of us who have suffered a loss recently, but we all showed support and empathy for one another when we presented our last months’ adventures.
Last but not least, Thursday and Friday were dedicated to Quest and Civ. We thought about how we all wanted to live our lives now to ensure we had the desired afterlife and shared our plans with one another. To complete the challenge, we created a life road map and drew it on flying paper lanterns highlighting the different ways we want to live our life now until 60 and flew them that afternoon, sending them to the afterlife. It was an intimate yet fun experience to end our week.