Coding and Robotics – 1st week

Short week this time, only two days 😊

Creating the Schedule: Before the beginning of each session, Alden and I go over the whole schedule and check what worked and what did not work in the previous session. This is great because it gives us an opportunity to fix things that did not work after only six weeks and not after six months, and also lets us easily check all kinds of ideas that we have. This time, for example, we came to the conclusion that fifteen minutes of yoga, three times a week, is not ideal, so we decided to have 30 minutes of yoga on Monday, an hour of PE at the park on Tuesday, an additional 30 minutes of workout and meditation on Thursday, and fifteen minutes of meditation in the two remaining days. I feel that this is a better solution and it will allow the Eagles to exercise almost every day (super important in my opinion). We decided to have the role-playing game to be joined with board game time and let the Eagles decide how much time they would like to dedicate to each of the activities. In addition, we decided to try to place DEAR at the end of the day and see if it is successful and whether the Eagles enjoy reading towards the end. You can see our new schedule at the beginning of the post.

Quest: This session we are doing the “Coding and Robotics” quest. The Eagles will learn to program using the Code.org virtual course for four weeks, and then work with robots for the last two weeks.

Levels of Freedom: During this session, two new Eagles reached the “Soaring” level and their pride and excitement were indescribable. One of the two is one of the young Eagles in the studio and the fact that he is now allowed to learn while lying down on the floor motivates him greatly. The concept of freedom levels is so innovative and exciting! The Eagles adopt good learning habits out of genuine inner motivation and these habits later become part of their nature.

Duct tape teambuilding games: I’m not sure I recommended it in the past, but even if I did, it’s worth to mention it again. There is a whole world of teambuilding games, which can be easily prepared with duct tape. I really liked the idea and bought this book, which contains 50 such activities, and there is an in depth explanation of the preparation of each activity, the issues the game raises and how to discuss them, etc. This week, I led an activity on the topic of consensus, using this game, and it was fun and very successful.

Weekly reflection: Starting this week, we are going to shoot a weekly video of the Eagles answering one question of reflection on the past week. Because we only had two days this week, we gave them two options of more general questions to choose from: What are the two main differences between Acton and a regular school, and What are your goals for 2019? I promise to upload a link of the video when it’s ready.