We have had a great time so far in our six-week Summer Series for elementary-school students. Every year, we partner with Mission Learning Center to offer an intensive reading and writing experience for students entering second through sixth grade. This year we have focused on a specific theme related to science each week of the program.
So far we’ve written about Monarch butterfly migration, animal skeletons, types of clouds, and everything in between. Students even pitched their own TV cartoon characters (based on exotic animals) to our notorious publisher, Mr. Blue. They have worked with plant samples, dry ice, and giant bubbles. They’ve composed nature poems and reordered the stars in the night sky with their own celestial mythologies. On cloudy days, we made our own sunshine in the writing lab through yoga and poetry. Once we brought the sun inside and after our lesson in writing with the five senses, we learned that it tasted like cheese sauce or a really spicy pepper, depending on whom you asked.
In addition to working with tutors to write short stories, poems, and essays, students became bookmakers as well, hand-making their very own books in which to write.
The camp concludes this week, but we hope that our campers will take what they have learned beyond the writing lab at 826, past the classroom at Mission Learning Center, and into the brand new school year!
