DI2018-Week3 Recap – Task and Presentation Instant Challenges

Following our Week2 meeting, we had our Week3 meet on Nov 4th with 5 kids in attendance. My goal was to cover the following:

1. Warm up: IC: Task – Create new musical instrument from stray items
2. Introduce the concept of “Reflection Time” and “Planning”
3. Discuss Team Conduct and Rules
4. Decide on Team Name

1. Instant Challenge: Presentation – Introduce the earth to visitors from Mars
2. Introduce the Central Challenge Topic and homework

We have consistently seen improvement in the team work. The kids remembered that it is important to listen to each other and used it during many discussions in this week.

The warm exercise is for them to break the thinking barrier and quickly figure out how to use any material for a particular task at hand. Initially I had the kids select a couple of items each and had them create a musical instrument with the materials including a story telling. The kids were natural adventurers and they were able to shape a story with the items picked up. Also I introduced the time to reflect where they talk about what went well and what can be improved. Then I gave them extra time to redo the project which often helps them improve what they did. Fantastic Job!

We applied the same process for the Team Conduct and Rules as well as Team Name section. We settled on the team name without going into detailed conversation. At some point we have to complete the process and move on. This is a skill to train with the team more.

For the majority of the time I had the kids choose what role they want to play in the upcoming presentation of “Introducing Earth to visitors from Mars”. Two kids chose to be from Mars and three chose to be from the earth.  One earthling decided to change his vote afterwards. Nonetheless they had a lot of fun planning their presentation and trying it out. It was not easy the first go around. Then we had the kids and parents provide suggestions. After which the kids used the inputs to reframe the story … their natural tendency to play interferes with the preparation a bit. Still there were several creative ideas that came out. Creativity is not a challenge; organizing it for a quick presentation is definitely something to work on further.

For our next meeting the kids are asked to come back reading the central challenge text. Plus they are asked to produce two outputs: a) A picture to use for their team t-shirts and b) story or drawing to use for the central challenge.

From the DI team manager meeting, I learnt that we are a Rising Stars team for DI2018, so changing our blog postings accordingly. We have to finalize our t-shirt designs by early December and prepare our application by early January as well. It is likely that there will be a Instant Challenge workshop for kids at Medina in December.