We opened this past week with a Socratic Discussion about the inspiring story of Lucille Bridges. The learners heard about Lucille’s adversities with her daughter integrating school, and were asked if they would do the same thing Lucille endured. Then they were asked if Lucille changed the world, and what motivated her to do it. It is always amazing to hear the different ideas that come out of these conversations. On Wednesdays, the Socratic discussions are focused on different conundrums and the learners have to pick a side and defend their opinion.
This week the learners had to pick which team is the most important to a company: the marketing, the engineering, design or manufacturing. It was an intense discussion with a lot of learners changing their opinions during it!
For Acton Athens the challenge for this week was to create an infographic on a major event or an interesting topic related to Ancient Greece. The learners also got the opportunity to discuss the fascinating Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in Socratic Smashdown.
For Writers’ Workshop many of the learners have finished their Turkey stories and have moved on to the next challenge: writing a picture book about the holidays or lights.
This week we started diving into giving more detailed feedback about word choice and conventions.
In art the learners painted their desks and they got to decorate it in their own creative way.
In makerspace the learners began to create their light pyramid. There is a strong emphasis on precision when cutting the cardboard for the pyramids. This shed light on some challenges such as, what do I do if I can’t cut the cardboard: do I try harder or move on to work with a different material, how does it feel to be in my panic zone and how can I move back to my challenge zone.
