What a week! The busiest we’ve ever been. Including a pre-school trial going on and some ES & MS trials, there were an additional 16 Eagles on trial in Acton this week.
The week started with kindness. An ES Eagle fell and an MS Eagle took the time to give first aid.
Then on Tuesday, Ms. Caryn ran the writing workshop with the ES Eagles. The Eagles wrote on crime or mysterious events and some of the Eagles shared their stories with the rest of the studio. Everyone participated in giving comments and the comments were accepted with an open heart. The mystery story writing is going well too. Be prepared to solve some mysteries during the upcoming exhibition.
Mid-week, during circle time, the ES studio talked about gratitude. We wanted Eagles to be able to understand what it means to be thankful, to show appreciation and how to return kindness.
The ES studio went to the Science Bridge Academy again for the microbe experiment. This time to prepare their petri dishes to watch for bacterial growth.
Unfortunately the agar they prepared as the growth medium for the bacteria didn’t harden on time, so we had to take the petri dishes back to school to continue the experiment. Gosh, after a few days the petri dishes were full of bacteria.
The Eagles then said “Wow, there is so much germs on our laptops and hands. I must clean my laptop!!”
“This is so cool but so stinky – look at my swirly germs.”
Some bad news though, 3 of our ES Eagles could not join us for ice skating this week because they didn’t meet their goals. It’s a painful lesson but a useful one. The Eagles tried their best to meet the ice skating requirements. It was tough but very achievable once they put their minds to it.
“This is the most points I have gotten so far!!! 300 points. It’s not so difficult after all.”
“I learnt the importance of planning. I cannot leave it to the day before anymore.” The joy they have on their faces after the hard work was priceless.
“I did it!! I worked really hard.” It is okay to allow them to struggle and fail because the long term joy outweighs the short term pain.
In the MS studio the psychology sprint is in full swing. The Eagles were given an opportunity to express themselves through free association. A couple of Eagles then went on to use clay and made this:
It looks good enough to eat! They also did some inkblot experiments, or better known as the Rorschach test.
On our theme on psychology, Edmond, who happens to be an NLP practitioner, did a quick session on how to control our minds by using our bodies.
And to get to know themselves and each other better, they did the Big Five personality test. The results will be coming out next week.
There was also a mini exhibition today where the MS shared what they learned this week. Some interesting ones included a presentation on the 5 ways video games use psychology to keep you playing.
And trypophobia, which is a fear of small clusters of holes.
The MS studio topped it all off with some swimming.