T-8 to Exhibition Day
Time never stops
Eagles, your work will be public, online and accessible for anybody to see. Do you have something to show?
The pressure of Exhibition kicked in. Also, we were on the week of Thanksgiving. Not that we celebrate it, but coincidentally we had a week of festive mood. Eagles worked hard and played hard this week. They were literally dancing to celebrations and surprises.
- A week of Celebrations & Surprises
- Growing as a Community
- Programming Quest: What lies ahead?
A week of Celebrations & Surprises
There was plenty of excitement throughout the week. It started with a Christmas tree and ended with Ms. Caryn’s birthday!
Christmas Tree
With three weeks to the end of school year, we transformed our studios from Halloween into a Christmas mood. A Christmas tree greeted the Eagles!
The Eagles looked forward to celebrations. They shared ideas about Secret Santa, games and plans of celebrating Christmas and New Year.
Surprise of the Day
The Eagles wanted momentum. One Eagle created a game of surprises to help motivate his friends.
Fake News or Real News
As part of the Programming Quest, the Eagles learned different topics on digital citizenship. One of them is learning how to identify fake news vs. real news. They came up with a series of tips to investigate each news.
We pushed the limit on this one. “ActonKL is moving to a new location” called for attention. Later, we sent an official email out.
Few Middle School (MS) Eagles took the effort to find the actual property listing on Property Guru, despite limited facts. The Elementary School (ES) Eagles were excited and checked if the address was real on Google Maps. Yes, we are indeed moving :))
And yes, Acton Academy is in a movie too.
Basic White Girl? Meme?
The MS Eagles continued the Game a Guide. I had to follow their trends and learned odd cultural ideas. Basic white girl and meme Guide were some of the features. Uh-oh.
MS Huddle in ES Studios
The Middle School Eagles had few rounds of Huddle in the Elementary School studio. Huddles are usually a reflection time for Eagles to share their learning, give appreciation to each other and set the tone for the next day or week.
They tried out the Elementary School rituals, such as using the mindfulness jar.
Who would have thought the Elementary School be introducing “systems” to the Middle School Eagles?
Friday Fun
Again, the Eagles worked hard to qualify for the Fun Friday. Initially only few Eagles qualified, then the rest kept working hard and many did qualify.
Since we struggled to come up with better ideas (as per last week’s post), the Eagles came up with ideas and organized themselves.
The ES Eagles played slime and danced their way, while the MS Eagles had a round of board & card games (with some high stakes).
Ms. Caryn’s Birthday Celebration
The Eagles kept a big secret with Julian (Ms. Caryn’s husband) about a Friday Birthday surprise over the week. They distracted Ms. Caryn during the Friday Fun dance as other Eagles and Julian helped set up the cakes for celebration! Happy Birthday Ms. Caryn!
Growing as a Community
Like last week, the Eagles continued to grow as a community. They were fixing their own issues and taking up responsibilities.
Changing Times
The Eagles had been frustrated with coordinating times to change their swimming gear. Last week, some were fighting on this matter!
Again, the important question: What are you going to do about it? On Tuesday, the ES Eagles came up with changing system, with different Eagles taking rounds in different private spaces.
Core Skills Checker
It started with Time Checker. Later, the Eagles have a Core Skills Checker. His/her role is to go around and see if every Eagle is putting the right effort in the Challenge Zone.
Stepping up in Organizing Studio Gears
Few Eagles started the trend of keeping things organized last week. It continued on. Here are some well-behaved mouse!
Stepping up to Organize a Trip
One MS Eagle stepped up to organize a trip to Ace Edventure game studios next Monday!
She wrote emails to Erica, the key person as well as the community, and planned the details. This would be the first time for an ActonKL Eagle organized field trip. We look forward to more of such Eagle-led activities!
Film Scoring Workshop with Music-Werks
We connected with Sharon from Music-Werks, and she conducted a Film Scoring Workshop with the Eagles on Thursday morning. The Eagles learned about movies and music and tried to come up with a good movie trailer.
They also learned that the first video ever made with music was an arrival of a train.
“Did you know that the first time people watched movie, they thought the train was coming out of the screen!”
Leveling Up in Challenges
The Eagles continued to work hard on the code.org challenges. Many MS Eagles were completing the express course. It was tough!
Design Thinking for Eagles by Eagles
Throughout the Programming Quest, the MS Eagles had been running the show for most unplugged activities. This week was no different.
On Wednesday, few MS Eagles ran a session of Design Thinking for both the studios. They went through the five phases of Design Thinking. It was a tough topic, but one MS Eagles had apprenticed with a designer few months ago, which helped in providing relevant insights.
Relay Programming. Debugging in a team
Relay programming was a lot of fun on Thursday. It proved a stretch for the youngest MS Eagle, who just turned 11 years old last month, to plan it. But she pulled herself eventually, and it was lots of fun!
Programming Quest: What lies ahead?
Many MS Eagles were completing the 30-hour express course. They along with the ES Eagles were transitioning into creating their final projects.
What lies ahead? Stay tuned to find out!
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