Each week, collaborators send home a message from the building to their families. They curate photos and stories to illustrate their students’ experiences during the week to give families that insight into the Brightworks life, and we use the blog to illuminate these experiences for the rest of the community. This week, we highlight Karin and the Lapis Band (6-8 year olds).

What’s the difference between a monster and a creature?

Amara: Monsters are scarier and more different and creatures are less dangerous. I think of animals as creatures.

Ethan: Monsters aren’t real and creatures are real.

Frankie: Creatures can’t talk and monsters can.

Isaiah: Monsters are scarier than other creatures.

Jaylen: Monsters are scary and creatures are real.

Lukas: A monster is imaginary and a creature is not imaginary.

Marlowe: A creature can be anything. A monster is whatever people decide is a monster or something people are scared of.

Nathi: Creatures can crawl and have different fur than monsters. They have different predators than monsters.

Penny: Creatures are more likely to be furry than scaly. Creatures are seen more than monsters. Monsters are usually imaginary and creatures aren’t. The best difference is that monsters are giant and scary and creatures are little and cute.

Pola: There are no such things as monsters. There are creatures.

Sylvie: Monsters are scarier.

Zane: Creatures are more like stuff that are similar to monsters but made differently. They aren’t scary enough to be monsters. They have something that tells you they’re scary.

“When I look back at our week’s photos, there is so much I want to share. First of all, I would like to update you on Isaiah’s broken banana saver. To get you up to speed, Isaiah’s banana saver broke during lunch time and he was in the blue zone about it. So, we posed the problem to the Lapis Band. They offered many solutions like taping it, gluing the sides, and attaching the two parts by drilling holes and sewing them together. Isaiah chose the latter. With Rob’s help, the banana saver has returned to its former glory, and is even more loved. We also sent an email to the company to share our process and feedback.”

In other design news, most students wrapped up Project Runny Nose. The rest of the Lapis gems will work on it next week. The Lapis band presented their designs to our Amethyst Middle School Buddies for further feedback. I told them how proud I was of their courage to share their work and be open to feedback from older students. The Lapis designers also had fun naming their creations: The Clip, Adventure Wipes, Jaylen’s Belt, and KEX to name a few.

Here are few improved prototypes:

Some highlights from the past week:

-For Community Friday, we walked to the design marvel, the Tunnel Tops playground.

-We welcome family stories and experiences of various holidays and special times of the year. Thank you Amara for sharing about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Reading Lessons: This week the Lapis gems practiced retelling over five fingers. I am a big fan of providing this structure when kids are retelling something that happened during recess, summarizing what they’ve read, or explaining what happened in a movie. I had the gems write the first letter of each transition word on their fingers- First, Then, Next, After that, and Finally.

Word Play: Lapis discussed the meaning of two words: 1. Professor and 2. Phonics. When we role play Professor of Phonics, a student becomes a professor of phonics and talks about a word’s features from our list. This week we discussed the word MONSTER.