Second to Last Session: New Tools and Self Direction!

Today was the second-to-last session of Thursday After School, and we all started with our best game faces. At the beginning of the afternoon, our elephant that feeds a squirrel to a peanut was in bits and pieces and seriously needed some critical thinking skills and hard work. The bad news, though, everyone had a really long and tiring day today. It was so hard to stay on task and get things done! The good news is that we stuck to it and made some serious progress. 

For part of the project, we discovered that we needed to make holes in the middle of a plywood sheet -- so a group of Tinkerers got to learn how to use the jigsaw and take turns making cuts.

Because we've been running each session similarly, with a group meeting at the beginning and a group meeting at the end, the Tinkerers have caught on to this pattern, and Ria took it upon herself to run the end-of-the-day meeting. She came to me right as we started to clean up with an agenda and a plan -- and then ran the meeting. 

This is the goal, right? To make these young humans into independent, self-directed individuals who understand what to do and have most of the tools (and skills) to get the job done! I can't wait to see what our last session brings...

Will the squirrel be fed a peanut by an elephant? We Shall See!