Our First Year

Week 5: Time Management and Heroes vs. Victims

This week has been a whirl wind of activity with work on the tree house and core skills being our primary points of focus.

 

We had a wonderful time this week with music and art on Tuesday and Thursday respectively. At music we learned more about the solfège syllables (Do, Re, Mi, Fa) and spending time with drums and piano. We sang a bluegrass song and everyone was able to try out the banjo and mandolin. At art we began a new project that practiced our cutting skills and should be looking great by the end of next art period.

 

A big part of this week was working on our Badge Plan Binders. The Eagles are setting their learning goals for the year by choosing which Badges in each of the core skills that they want to earn.

 

This week's hike was to the top of Piper Mtn. in Gilford. We had a wonderful time at the summit and on the way up. We also saw a large amount of grasshoppers at the summit and many were caught. I would like to congratulate all of the eagles on completing a challenging hike of over 2,000 feet in elevation!

 

We had big lessons in time management this week. Each day a different Eagle is the "Time Keeper" and they are in charge of keeping everyone on schedule. If they forget to give 2 minute warnings and are late to the next activity, they start losing points. If they are told it is time for the next activity and are late, they also lose points. This week we had a few very late realizations that they forgot what time it was! The Eagles figured out how to still get all of their work done on those days and now they check the time constantly and are really learning the value of being not just on time, but early!

 

We had a big discussion about being a Victim vs. being a Hero and the traits of each mindset. We encourage our Acton parents to use this vocabulary at home. If your Eagle is really struggling with something, dwelling on something negative, being lazy, indifferent or distracted, you can ask "Are you being a Hero right now or a Victim?"

Week 3

We had quite the eventful week even though it was a short one. While focusing on core skills in the morning we began working on building our tree house play structure. So far we are in the planning stage, but next week we hope to start building!    Thursday we started Art with Ms. Sanni doing some leaf pressings in clay we plan on painting next week. We spent the rest of the day at the Squam Lakes Natural Science center. The Eagles greatly enjoyed the natural playscape and checking out the animals (and dinosaur animatrons) along the trail.   We had our first Town Hall meeting this week and made some great improvements to the studio already based on the Eagles ideas and discussions. We also started building our Studio Contract and testing some rules and ideas out this week. A few have made it into the permanent contract and we are still experimenting with others.   During one of my favorite morning Launches this week, we brought out a bowl of apples and passed each apple around the circle. We asked the Eagles to tell us how each apple was different than the others (some have bruises, different colors, longer stems, etc). Then we started cutting the apples in half and we found that in the middle of each apple is a STAR with seeds inside. And this got us into the discussion that every living thing has seeds inside of it and that each have the potential to blossom into new fruit. We talked about how each of our Eagles (students) have seeds of potential inside of them - how every human has seeds of genius and creativity! And what do we need to do to nurture those seeds and let them grow? If you toss an apple in the trash it isn't going to automatically become an apple tree, but if you plant it in fertile ground and water it and give it sunlight, the tree will grow. The Eagles talked about how they need quiet time to learn and to work and they need friendship and challenges to grow as people.   I am also reminded that, as parents, we need to remember to be the gardener of our child's seeds of potential and not a carpenter shaping them into what we think they should be. <3 This is definitely easier said than done sometimes!   The inner growth has been steady and things are starting to fall into place. We are excited to see what the Eagles continue to accomplish!