About one month to our first ever e-CBF! As Acton Eagles know, dry runs are integral ingredients to successful events, so this week we had a dry run for the e-CBF. Many of the Eagles had never used Facebook before, so it was a real learning curve for them. Participating parents and Guides posed as buyers and asked all sorts of pertinent questions which the sellers had to answer in a bid to make their sales. All in, the dry run generated a lot of positive feedback and constructive criticism.

Arjun tapped into our need for homegrown vegetables and offered vegetable kits complete with soil and pots.

Weekly Updates

Preschool / Spark Studio (PS) Update

Home Challenges

This week the PS Eagles continued helping with the laundry. Continuous practice makes perfect, or at least advancement, and the Eagles are now confident with laundry tasks.

The PS Eagles tackled making their beds as the home challenge for this week. There were 2 parts to the challenge – forming the habit of making their beds in the morning, and learning how to change the bed linen come laundry day.

The PS Eagles loved practicing making their beds daily and, by the end of the week, they had made a habit of it. They had also mastered changing the bed linen independently. They are really relishing their advancing life skills. Yay PS Eagles!

Learning home skills now will set them up for life when they live on their own.

Daily Challenges

The PS Eagles are really enjoying their daily challenges. Monday’s challenge was the Counting Edition Scavenger Hunt in which they practiced 1-1 correspondence. Tuesday’s challenge was to trace numbers using their own DIY paint. The challenge for Wednesday was the Greater or Less Than card game, a variation of Snap! that had the PS Eagles comparing number relations. Thursday saw the PS Eagles creating numbers with the decimals and 4 operations. The Eagles had so much fun that they forgot that they were learning at the same time!

On a side note, most of the materials for the activities were generated by the Eagles themselves … part of independent learning and reducing, reusing, and recycling. Way to go, PS Eagles!

This fun challenge got the PS Eagles to be aware of their surroundings while they practiced 1-1 correspondence.

Deep concentration is what engaging work leads to.

Mixing our own paint let’s us figure out so many things like proportions, shades and consistency.

Montessori work leads the Eagles to be independent and self-sufficient.

I am trying to write something so I use the tools available to help me figure it out.

Using playdough to spell is so much more fun than writing it!

Creating our own alphabet will help it stick in our head better than recitation.

Magnet Fun

Everybody loves magnets and the PS Eagles had a ball exploring their magical magnetic properties, picking up some science, language, and hand-eye coordination. The challenge was for the Eagles to repeat the set activities as many times as they needed to until they had mastered them, building perseverance and tenacity.

The magnet activities included magnetic and non-magnetic sorting where the Eagles practiced inference and experimentation to prove their inferences, as well as a word search for magnetic and non-magnetic items. Each activity had a control of error chart so that the Eagles could carry out independent work.

Experimentation and recording the findings … the basis of science.

Elementary Studio (ES) Update

E-ship Quest Project

It’s all systems go towards the e-CBF, and the ES Eagles started work on their E-ship Quest. The quest is structured like a game in which the Eagles have to navigate their ‘entrepreneur-ships’ through 6 different islands to land at the final destination … the Children’s Business Fair!

The islands are:

Motivation Island
Market Island
Identity Island
Unit Economics Island
Hiring Island
Competition & Substitute Island

This week the ES Eagles navigated through Motivation Island and Market Island. The first order of business … to ‘build’ their ‘entrepreneur-ships’ which will be placed onto the Quest map upon return to the Studio. As the Eagles navigate through the Islands, they will be able the move their ships closer to the destination – CBF Land.

At Motivation Island, the ES Eagles explored 3 different types of entrepreneurs – the Bootstrap Tortoise, the Asset Fox, and the MBA Hare. They evaluated their own gifts and motivations to discover the type of business that would suit them the best.

The next port of call was to determine the product that they would sell at the e-CBF. With this in mind, the ES Eagles visited Market Island where they were charged with coming up with a customer survey to find out more about their customer’s interests and needs. This helped them identify if they had the right target market for their product.

The ES Eagle’s ‘e-ships’ are a fun visual way to see whether they are reaching their goals.

Writer’s Workshop

The ES Eagles have started working on their Writer’s Workshop Challenge this week. For this Sprint, the Eagles are working on a persuasive writing piece/business pitch which they will then use for their e-CBF. This week saw them start off at the Prewriting stage of gathering information for the piece.

The first thing the ES Eagles did was learn about their competition using the KWL chart. By learning about the competition, they were able to gain better insight into their own products, how to sell them, how to market them, and their attraction to customers.

The ES Eagles took the next step of evaluating their own products and listing down reasons why their products would be valuable for potential investors to invest their money on.

Going through processes may seem tedious to the ES Eagles, but in time they will realise that it’s in the process that magic happens.

Since there were fewer ES Eagles at the meeting, the Guide requested that everyone turn their video on.

e-CBF Simulation

The highlight of the week was the e-CBF simulation held on Wednesday! The mock e-CBF was open for all Eagles to participate in as sellers and buyers, while their parents and Guides roleplayed being buyers. The goal of the dry run was to identify any potential problems so that the could be ironed out before the actual event in mid-June. The simulation also served to familiarise the Eagles with the use of Facebook to sell items.

Many of the ES Eagles found the posting of items relatively easy, but the dry run showed them that crafting the post carefully was key to minimizing the stress of having to answer the same questions over and over again.

Once the simulation went live, many Eagles were overwhelmed by the many messages and questions that barraged them. They felt they had to answer immediately and couldn’t prioritize which answers were more pertinent. Nevertheless, they soldiered on and tried to answer as best they could while navigating the totally foreign system of Facebook sales. It was a great learning curve for them and gave them much food for thought about the upcoming event.

The e-CBF Simulation at 1pm, Wednesday 6th May was a successful in that it generated a lot of questions, feedback and re-evaluation.

Clara offered cool and refreshing lemonade … how can anyone resist?

Apsie and Vega’s customisable hand-painted watercolour bookmarks are handy and beautifully crafted works of art.

Jasmine’s self-written, original stories are a great gift for voracious readers, and the colourful, hand-crafted bookmarks will them keep their place in whatever they’re reading.

Middle Studio (MS) Update

Tuesday Morning Launch – A Socratic Discussion on ‘Binge-Watching’

Acton Academy facilitates discovery through Socratic Discussions in which a Questioner introduces a scenario, provides two extreme options/stances for his peers to ‘take a stand’ on, and asks their peers for evidence and rationale to support their stances.

The MS Eagles were asked to create a Socratic Discussion around the topic of ‘Binge-Watching’ – a topic which is quite relevant right now with everyone being at home all day and in need of distraction. Haidan stepped up to the Challenge and posed the question: “You have finished your work for the day and look forward to watching an anime series. Will you binge-watch the entire series in one sitting? OR will you spread the anime out throughout the week?”

Andre’s response was that he would watch the entire series in one sitting. The rest of the MS Eagles chose to spread the series out throughout the week or beyond. Evan’s rationale was that “I don’t want to tire myself out and wake up late the next day.” Morris said, “I might miss a detail if I fall asleep in the middle.”

The Guide stepped in once when Gibran stated that, “It depended on whether the anime was any good,” and proposed that the Eagles stick to the ROE (Rules of Engagement) and take a stand on either one of the proposed sides.

The simplicity of the question allowed everyone to have a high energy discussion and it was nearly full participation from all present MS Eagles. The majority of the participants gave Haidan an 8/10 rating for leading the Socratic Discussion even if it was just for fun.

The Tuesday Morning Socratic Discussion on ‘Binge-Watching’ led by Haidan was just for fun, but It did bring up some food for thought.

The majority of the MS Eagles gave Haidan an 8/10 for the Tuesday Morning Socratic Discussion.

Friday Morning Launch – A Socratic Discussion on a ‘Mother’s Day Gift’

The Socratic Discussion on Friday centered around Mother’s Day. There was no response from the MS Eagles, and after a long pause, the Guide proposed these questions:

Q1 Should we Acton Heroes prepare Mother’s Day gifts as a group? Or should we prepare gifts individually?

Q2 (stemming from Q1) What are the gifts we can organize as a group (other than making cakes, creating cards, etc.)?

Haidan said that the tradition in his family was to prepare gifts as a group as he had many siblings. Previously, they would all sign a card, but he was open to suggestions this year. Morris initially thought that gifts should be given individually, but later switched sides when he saw that there was merit in doing it as a group. Evan stood firm that customized, personal gifts should be prepared individually, not in groups.

Morris’ suggestion was flowers and a card. Aqeesha chose breakfast in bed and flowers. Gibran said, “For Mother’s Day, I shall buy my mother some cupcakes.” Evan opted for a digital interactive postcard with breakfast in bed and Andre decided that a card and a big cake would be the way to go. Thank you, MS Eagles for a lively and funny Morning Launch!

Socratic Discussion: Mother’s Day Gift. It may seem that the MS Eagles have outgrown these kinds of gifts, but it seems they have not.

Friday Town Hall

This Town Hall’s objective was to discuss and clean up the MS Studio’s Systems. Aqeesha and Dhanya held the first Town Hall for the MS Studio in Sprint 5.

Decisions were made and reported on the MS Eagle Google Hangouts as follows:

Commitment Contract for the Sprint (to be signed next week.)
One Eagle can only hold 2 Roles/responsibilities in the Studio.
Removal of unnecessary Roles during the MCO (EB Store Manager, Noble Silence CS Manager, and Studio Maintenance Manager).
EB Payment shall remain the same (3 EBs per role will be paid by EB Manager Evan.)
Discussion Leaders – 2 Leaders max per Launch (change from only 1 Discussion Leader per Launch).

Dhanya and Aqeesha agreed that Friday’s Town Hall was the most memorable time of the entire week. They spent time discussing and finalizing what was to be done and the meeting went well, with an average rating of 7/10.

Character Call Outs are sent to Dhanya and Aqeesha for keeping the Studio Standards high and asking their fellow Heroes to recommit to their promises.

Attendance during Friday Town Hall at 1pm.

e-CBF Simulation

The MS Eagles were invited to participate in the e-CBF Simulation so that they could get first-hand practical knowledge on online selling via Facebook. Four Heroes from the MS Studio participated in the Simulation despite a heavy workload that day.

Aqeesha, Evan, Dhanya, and Raees put up great FB posts as their ‘e-CBF sales booths’. At first, Raees was going to pull out because he, “Needed to catch up on work,” but he decided to join the Simulation after all. Evan asked, “Why the change of heart?” to which Ra’ees answered, “I felt like it wouldn’t be nice if I didn’t participate, but I mean I just felt like doing it as it helps me in my future for selling things. I want to get feedback so when the real e-CBF comes, I am prepared.”

The Guide sends a Character Call Out to all 4 who participated in the e-CBF Simulation!