Thu 3rd Sep - club session

One of our busiest sessions.  And even finally after a year or so managed to get our menu idea going in the form of a challenge list.  It worked well for parents and I think that that is an important thing as then they can start to see what's available.   The initiates worked well with this also.  It was a bit harder for those who were not used to this way of doing things and I think that I should employ a guide (another explorer to show and play 3 or 4 activities with newish ones).
There was a decent range of activities to keep explorers going but they did not choose to try all types of activity (maybe a map of activities would be better and then explorers could be encouraged to "visit" each continent).
Prioritising trying and finding some way to record attempts then questions would be good too.
Just started this time with handing out challenge lists and then told them to get on with it.  I should find a way to get them to earn points (which could be stars that they use for the evaluation part).  Competition, collaboration, questioning, talking about an activity (review or observation), helping others, variety of activities etc.  Maybe 5 points per star.  Could be difficult to organise the points but worth a try)
work needed with J and 007 to get them into it.  Linked up with other explorers would be good but no one really in J's range other than the girls (I and J).challenge sheet

Parent's were much more engaged in this as well so a guidance sheet for them would have been good.  Or maybe not but some ideas up my sleeve instead.

Activities that need development.
Hex - the most loved game but difficult to get them to look at strategy development ( and maybe they shouldn't be doing it)
Nim is similar to Hex in this regard.  Part of the issue with Hex especially is that once they've beaten me they don't need to think more about it.
An observations gallery would be really good.  I could laminate and put the them near the activities with the code badge of the observer (or questions/problems).  This would be really good.  I could find a few that have been told to me already and put the me together as examples and then have post its where explorers can tell me or their parents and get it put in a box for that kind of thing. Definitely a development priority for next week (do it NOW!).  This should be one of the tick boxes on the challenge sheet also and then the map could be on the back.