The Weekly Newsletter
Week 15: January 8-12
Welcome back everyone! The Eagles had a great week, with so much fun in quest work, writing, and lots of progress and learning during core skills. We finished up the week with a birthday celebration for Ryan, which was a very sweet (literally) way to say goodbye to the week and hello to the weekend! Here’s a look into our week:
We launched our character trait project that the Launchpad will be leading for the next few weeks. Each week we will focus on a character trait and Bella and Ethan will launch on Monday with the character trait focus. We will do a team building exercise around the trait and then they will be looking for the character trait throughout the week- someone who really embodies and puts effort toward using this trait to help them grow as a student, a friend, and a fellow traveler. This week Bella lead Accountability and put together a really amazing presentation and lead us through some great activities. At the end of the week, Jeli won the character trait hero title! She demonstrated so much fantastic self-accountability in the studios and especially on her commuter student days. Always calling in on the dot, getting everything done at home and at school, and having a great attitude about it all. Keep up the good work, Jelli and everyone else!
This week in writing workshop the navigator and launchpad studios worked hard on their new writing workshop quest- blogging! Their assignments for the week were to find a couple of blogs that they love- and that are successful- and write about how these blogs inspire them. For this quest they will learn and explore what tools to use to make an excellent and a relevant blog, how to build a presence online (or on paper!) with their blogs, and how to write and use their voices in their blogs. It’s going to be a blast!
We started Canada geography this week! Geography continues to be such a fun exploration into the world, as each year we all learn a new thing or two about the states, countries, and provinces around the world!
Chemistry was the MOST FUN this week! We learned about the three states of water- solid, liquid, and gas, and how the activity of molecules change depending on the state of matter. We did a few experiments with changing the state of matter, and looked closer into why molecules change. We touched a bit into elements and where they stand on the periodic table, too. The best part was the excitement around this quest! It’s electric. And so fun to watch!
This week’s journaling prompt asked the Eagles to dig deep into their knowledge of and relationship with “accountability”. It was the character trait focus this week, and as we did many workshops around it, we wanted the kids to reflect within themselves to see what they feel and think of when they think about accountability. Weekly journaling is so invaluable as a tool to strengthen writing and really to take time to be mindful and get deep within yourself.
In history for the foundation and navigator transition studios, the Eagles finished up their scavenger hunts! The project this week was not only a lesson in history, but also in responsibility and flexibility. The students have worked very hard on this challenging project to write creative clues in an ancient language, but the challenge took a turn as not everyone was able to finish theirs on time. A huge part of independent and self-lead learning is being able to accept when things don’t go as planned and navigate it gracefully, making adjustments as needed- all while keeping a positive mentality. So- this week we all learned a lot, had fun doing a couple scavenger hunts, and look forward to doing more next week!
For the navigator and launchpad Hamilton history, they are now deep in the war. Washington sent orders not to surrender, but the general in charge still started to retreat. Washington and Hamilton both showed to be very inspiring to the soldiers, and Washington even went to the front lines to inspire them to keep going. They also read about Valley Forge. And Hamilton witnessed his first duel! Which no one died in- and the end result had a great influence on Hamilton. Throughout the book, we keep seeing how a centralized government was really important to Hamilton and it comes up in small ways frequently. Really interesting!
The navigator transition studio and Dani had their first book club this week! For the next few weeks, as a fun addition to reading a deep read, the students have the opportunity to read A Wrinkle in Time and participate in book club each week! It’s a wonderful way to get each other excited about reading, get closer to getting the Great Reads badge, read one of the best books ever written, and discuss it!
Towards the end of the week we had our last day of Ultimate Frisbee. It’s been a fun ride, and we are excited for the next potential PE sport!
Have a good weekend!
