Expedition: An Acton Academy

11/25/2024

Permanently closed.

05/01/2023

Expedition has moved into a new location and heroes couldn't be happier!

Venture Campus Winston-Salem has a beautiful newly remodeled building which houses our school, chickens, honey bees, native gardens, a butterfly garden, a veggie garden and a gorgeous soccer field!

We are very grateful to Augsburg Lutheran Church for giving us the opportunity to open up in Winston-Salem at the beginning of September.

We hope to see you at our next Exhibition of Learning on May 25th beginning at 2pm (1360 Lynndale Drive)!

03/02/2023

Do you dare to Acton and reimagine education for your child(ren)?

Dr Jordan B Peterson and Jeff Sandefer discuss the k-12 education machine, its origins and failures, and how the Acton Institutes are making leaps to correct...

01/31/2023

Discovery heroes have been trying out Math Lab this session.

What is Math Lab? It is a fun and simple way to boost math collaboration, excitement and focus on learning skills instead of just completing math assignments.

Math Lab can look different each week. Some weeks, heroes can be found playing math based games such as Yahtzee. Playing games encourages critical thinking and provides a structure and process to engage in problem-solving.

Some weeks heroes participate in One Marker, Two Minds which is when partners collaborate using both of their minds and only one person does the writing. Our heroes love the Life of Fred math series and Greg Tang math riddle books.

Esti-Mysteries are also a Math Lab favorite way to warm up our MATH MAGICIAN brains! Esti-Mysteries bring math joy and rich math talk as heroes work through math concepts, estimation, and a sense of mystery!

Learning IS fun!

12/12/2022

Expedition is ALWAYS about hero's choice! Exhibition of Learning week is no exception.

During this week, heros are encouraged to complete all their work for Quest, Writers Workshop, Core Skills, and Learning To Be.

Completing work, and ensuring it for excellence, is how our heros earn their badges.

Would you like to help vote on the best pitch for a new playground or vote on the best lemonade stand? If so, please join us this Thursday from 2:00-3:00 pm. Shoot us a DM to let us know to expect you!

10/31/2022

Discovery Heroes sure are enjoying Art Journey Quest every Monday morning since the start of our year.

Heroes have Sessions I-III to work through the varying levels of Art. Here are their options:

1. Exploring How to Draw
2. Exploring How to Draw 3D
3. Exploring How To Draw a Face
4. Exploring Origami
5. Exploring Painting
6. Exploring Famous Art
7. Exploring Designing
8. Free Art

Heroes will move into a Music Journey Quest for Sessions IV-VI.

Heroes work at their own pace at Expedition and define excellence as:

1. Is this my best work?
2. Is this work better than before?
3. How does my work compare to a world-class example?
4. Is my work ready for public exhibition?

Excited to see some art displayed on our studio walls once it has been deemed excellent by our Excellence Committee.

10/27/2022

Congratulations to one of our former Expedition: An Acton Academy heroes, Kelsie, on winning the Vooks creative writing contest last year!

Last June, during our final session of the year, heroes were presented with a fun Writers Workshop that was all about creativity and imagination! Although this task appeared easy, it was soon discovered to be quite a challenge due to the time constraints that Vooks had set as part of the contest rules.

Expedition heroes were not familiar with writing a story, let alone reading it, in under 30 seconds. They all sounded like The Chipmunks as we listened to each recording. After a discussion, Kelsie reached out to Vooks on behalf of all our heroes and posed the challenge they were facing with the time constraint. She received a response and Vooks changed the time constraint to now be under 1 minute! World-changer!

The winning submission received some favorite books AND had their creation transformed into a digital story by the amazing folks at Vooks. They just finished it and shared with the world on their Instagram page.

Without further adieu, here is Kelsie's winning submission:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkMInW6NzK6/

10/24/2022

Creating our Studio Contract is not an easy task but it is one that is taken very seriously by our heroes.

During the first session, heroes come up with ideas they believe should be part of their contract. They try those ideas out for a bit (laboratory) and then vote on whether to veto them (recycle) or add them to their contract (results).

Next, all ideas that have not been recycled are forced ranked.

Then, heroes write out their contract.

After that, during their Exhibition of Learning, all heroes make a promise to abide by the contract they have created. They seal their promise with a signature. One hero verbalized he felt as though he was signing the Declaration of Independence.

Finally, the contract goes up on the wall.

This is the power of a learner-driven environment. The "rules" do not come from the adults, they come from the learners.

Want this for your child? Reach out to schedule a chat and tour.

10/18/2022

The Expedition: An Acton Academy heroes will be participating in a Writers Workshop titled Pitch a Playground beginning November 1st. The winning design pitch will get to have his/her playground built for our new space!!!

Local Friends: do you know of any local playgrounds that we could visit besides Hanes Park for inspiration?

Around the World Friends: will you send names of awesome parks that we could look up on the internet for inspiration?

Thank you for opening our eyes to all the possibilities!