The Weekly Newsletter
Week 23, March 5-9
Welcome back everyone! Becky here- I just want to say that it’s so great to be back, and even though I am many miles away, it’s been so wonderful to be able to continue working with the Eagles and seeing all the amazing things they’re doing. I’ll be reporting from afar, but am still very much in the mix of things so thought I would keep giving you the highlights from the week so you too can celebrate these daily strides!
This week we launched with a reflection on rock climbing, which was such an awesome experience of growth and fun for everyone. This week the highlighted character trait was GRIT and it was lead by Bella. Bella defined grit as “firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger… indomitable spirit”. Powerful words!
Bella showed a Ted Talk featuring a speaker and teacher named Angela Lee Duckworth who spoke about her experience teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that GRIT was the biggest contributor and predictor to success, much more than IQ. Bella asked everyone to reflect on this video and also broke down grit as a mixture of courage and perseverance; spirit and readiness. Throughout the week, everyone set intentions to use grit in everything they did. Some major inspiration came from talking about amazing people like Malala and J.K. Rowling. The character trait hero, announced at the end of the week was: Leticia! Leticia worked so hard this week and finished EVERYTHING she set out to! This included above and beyond work like finishing all of A Wrinkle in Time and an Independent Learner Binder challenge! Good job, that’s some true grit 🙂
For writing workshop this week, the foundation and navigator transition studios worked on the final process of their short stories. They are trucking along…we promise these will be finished by the end of the year! 😉 For the launchpad and navigator studios, it was all about blogging. We got so many cool posts from them this week! The range of interest and writing styles is so unique and eclectic!
Every week the students continue what we all believe is a lifelong journey…journaling! Lately, especially, I have really been seeing how important journaling is for personal growth and reflection, as it is a required and a critical piece of a program I am doing. Each week the Eagles are presented with prompts to answer in any way they want, and are encouraged to get really deep, creative, and descriptive with their writing! The journaling prompt for the foundation and navigator transition studios this week was: “Think about your favorite movie or your favorite actress/actor and answer these questions: What do you like about it/them? What about it/them inspires you? How did it/they make an impact on your life?” And for the launchpad and navigator studios: “Tell us about one thing (or 2 or 3) you are really proud of in your life right now. Tell us all about it, how you got there, how you are feeling about it, etc. And why you are proud of it.” Some very thoughtful journals we got this week!
For history this week, the foundation and navigator transition studios read all about the history of India and how it began! They dug deep into the lives of ancient Indians and what it would have been like to be an Indian sailor discovering the vast Arabian Sea, compared the lives of the people in ancient Mesopotamia and India to the lives of people in modern society, and got heavy into the importance of trade and the first trade routes…all leading up to a map challenge to be able to identify the major trade routes in India!
In history for the navigator and launchpad studios, they read all about Hamilton’s wife’s family, the Schuyler’s. They were a wealthy and influential Colonial American family. They learned about the relationships within the family and how the family was a positive influence on Hamilton.
Chemistry this week included finishing up their own presentations of the elements, studying the various types of bonds between atoms, and making “Elephant Toothpaste”! The Eagles are getting really good at being able to identify different atoms based on the number of protons in the nucleus and being able to understand the meaning of these crazy things we call atomic number and mass….and see that it’s not as scary as it seems! The Eagles even took things into their own hands and made their own salt molecules to more fully understand the makeup of sodium chloride. Fun!
This week in fitness, the Eagles ran the whole mile for conditioning! Go Acton! And for PE, our awesome leaders Reese and Chiara launched the new PE sport… Ping Pong! The activities for this introductory week were games on the ping pong table, using the wall, playing without a net, and drills.
That’s it for this week! Have a great weekend everyone! Enjoy the LA sunshine for me (or the LA rain, whichever :))
