a new session has begun!

Check out this week’s updates…

spark studio

Our Family Share Challenge has begun. Belonging is a strong feeling that exists in all of us. To belong or not to belong is a subjective experience that can be influenced by several factors within people and their surrounding environment. Our sense of belonging can greatly impact our physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual emotions. Active listening can help create a feeling of belonging. This is because it enables listening and responding to another person in an understanding and meaningful way. What if we create a “good listener” badge? If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for the challenge, click the link below. https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/70A0C45A4A62CAAF49-spark7

Another meaningful way to share is to invite the heroes to bring in a special share from home that they can tell us about. This is something they love to do. There are several things that you as a parent can do to augment this learning experience for your hero:

Help to select an item and have them explain to you how it fits with the school curriculum.
Help practice describing the object and explaining why they want to share it with the Studio.
Reinforce effective speaking habits, such as looking at the audience and speaking clearly.

Ask questions about the item so that your hero can be ready to answer when friends and guides have questions. We ask that all toys and stuffed animals stay safely at home.

Thoughtful ideas may include a trip to a new city (road map) or a foreign land (postcards, souvenirs, etc.) Special books. Cultural artifacts given from grandparents. Nature collected during your last camping trip. Unique stones or gems, feathers, leaves, etc. Something handmade. Anything that helps them broaden their minds about this world, their world, our world! What can we learn from this special share? Be on the lookout as heroes will receive an invitation with a challenge for their special share day.

“Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

— Mother Theresa, Saint Teresa of Calcutta

lower elementary studio

Step into our Lower Elementary School Studio, where learning is an adventure filled with excitement and growth!

This week in Math Labs, our young heroes are shining brightly. They're not just solving problems; they're exploring diverse ways to tackle them. Their favorite part? Sharing their brilliant ideas with friends and our supportive community. During The Number Line activity, they're not just solving equations; they're building confidence, taking risks, asking questions, and becoming amazing listeners.

As we dive into Session 2, our learners embark on The Forest Flight School Quest. Here, they discover flight physics through Newton's 3 Laws of Motion. Collaboration is key as they explore Laws 2 and 3 through fun group activities; paper airplanes were up first.

In Civilization, our young historians are journeying back to the End of the 19th Century. Their adventure began with the European Colonization of Africa, where they created brochures showcasing different countries, unlocking the secrets of history.

With Literacy Circles, our heroes are becoming bookworms. Reading two chapters a week they enhance their reading skills and boost confidence. They don't just read; they ask thought-provoking questions to their peers. Plus, they dedicate time to refining their Core Skills with Lexia and Zearn. Our Studio is a place of growth, discovery, and camaraderie. It's where heroes become the best versions of themselves, all while having a blast!

upper elementary studio

Welcome back to an exciting new session!

Learners were introduced to our new Quest: The Forest Flight School. Throughout the session, we will be learning about the physics of aviation through hands-on maker challenges and exploring the scientific method. By the end of the session, learners will have produced concept models that show improvements on military planes, which will be reviewed by our military aviation expert.

As an additional science experience (a side-Quest, if you will) Upper Elementary heroes will participate in the Monarch Watch Tagging Program. Georgia is a key area on the "Monarch Trail", which is the path monarch butterflies take on their yearly migration from Canada to Mexico. This migration takes four generations, and this final generation has begun to emerge in our area. Heroes will raise the caterpillars to adults, test them for infectious diseases, and then tag and release them on their way to Mexico.

We are also excited to begin our Story Arts Learning Experience for the session, where we will be making Wikipedia pages about ourselves. This gives learners an opportunity to share about themselves while learning writing and review skills, as well as some lite HTML coding.

middle school studio

This week, we started off Session two with a bang!

The Haunted House Quest was introduced with spooky lighting and a scary tale. We charged every Middle School and High School hero to write their own original story that could be executed as a terrifying Haunted House. Heroes circled up and read their stories aloud until we narrowed it down to the final three. Those three brave writers shared their spooky stories with the High School, and we all voted on our favorite. The top six writers get priority on being on the writing team as well develop the story into the Haunted House experience.

We began thinking through the User Experience of guests to our Haunted House in Story Arts and formed new squads and Studio Maintenance teams for Session 2. We continue to develop the culture so that heroes can flourish, and heroes are being challenged as individuals and as a group to consider how they contribute to a positive culture.

Lastly, we were fortunate to have a stellar wellness expert who works in security to discuss drills, bullying, digital safety, and school safety. Some big takeaways that we had were:

If you see a pattern of someone being picked on, tell someone.
Heroes should not let anyone in the building; get a Guide.
Taking safety drills seriously as Middle School heroes sets the tone for younger Studios.

There’s a vibrant energy in the Studio leading up to next week’s breakdown of Haunted House teams, whether it’s costuming, set design, writing, ticket sales, and more. We can’t wait to see the incredible work they’re going to do!

high school studio

We embarked on an energetic and exciting launch into the Quest on Monday. This enthusiastic start was essential because Quest is poised to be a substantial undertaking in this session. We kicked things off by having each hero craft spine-chilling stories for our haunted house project. As a school community, we organized table reads for each eerie tale, ultimately selecting the most captivating one.

Our journey then led us to the realm of Story Arts, a crucial focus of this session based on our heroes' requests. Many of our heroes aspire to enter college with the confidence to take effective notes and to meet this aspiration, we've designed a series of engaging challenges.

These challenges cover various topics, ranging from climate change to current events. Through these activities, our heroes will develop robust note-taking skills. As a culmination of their efforts, they will create a written piece in a chosen genre, allowing them to share the knowledge they've gained.

Following this, we delved into Civilization, a thematic exploration centered on fear—its science, its impacts, and the stories of those who have conquered it. This deep dive into the psychology of fear is a crucial element in our preparation for the haunted house project. We aim to create an exceptionally eerie, thrilling, and captivating haunted house experience, and understanding fear is paramount to achieving this goal.

Lastly, we wrapped up the week with some housekeeping tasks, preparing for our upcoming contract signing event next week. To guide our heroes in crafting meaningful contracts, we were fortunate to have an expert visit us. This expert, a life coach, provided valuable guidance on the content and direction of their contracts.

wellness review

Our second session in Wellness sees a shift in our studies to focus on bullying. We began our session by defining bullying and openly discussing what constitutes bullying. We moved to see a raise of hands-on how many have bullied, been bullied, or witnessed bullying. Learners were hesitant to find ownership in behaviors that sometimes may be hurtful to others, but by encouraging accountability through the example of ownership, everyone gradually felt more comfortable beginning to have these open conversations to reflect and learn. As always, I’m so impressed by the maturity and insightfulness of these learners and can see how much goodness is innate when given the floor to express their thoughts and opinions.

We welcomed expert Chad Payne to lead conversations about bullying, security, and safety. Chad Payne has extensive experience in executive protection and public safety, working with several police departments in the state of Georgia, instructing in SWAT team training, instructing at the State of Georgia Police Academy, and overseeing safety drills at public safety agencies. Chad has since transitioned to a full-time executive protection role with a Grammy Award-winning musical artist. Through this executive protection role, Chad has traveled the world working harmoniously with security teams and local law enforcement and leads others in incorporating proper safety and security practices.

Mr. Chad opened up powerful conversations with the learners, imparting the importance of safety drills in an effort to keep our community safe. With the High school, Middle school, and Upper Elementary Studios, Mr. Chad reflected on the importance of drill safety in relation to 9/11 and the responsiveness to the alarms and exiting the building. We worked to help learners throughout the school understand the value behind silence, order, and respect while we hosted these drills at our school, placing extra emphasis on the High School and Middle School Studios’ responsibility to be examples and leaders. High School, Middle School, Upper, and Lower Studios were questioned about social media practices, and tips for safety were shared explaining the importance of responsibly handling social media and the internet.

Mr. Chad moved to discuss stranger danger and the appropriate ways to respond to strangers at our school or in public. Learners were encouraged to commit 911 to memory and their address and guardian’s phone number. The appropriate ways to respond to bullying and the importance of looping in a guide were discussed, and we took the opportunity to address learners' concerns. Spark learners were excited at the opportunity to see Mr. Chad’s badge and ask questions about his experience as a police sergeant. We encourage you to continue these conversations at home surrounding safety, security, respect, and bullying and are looking forward to furthering our studies in school!

Session 2: Year 6, Week 6 In Review