Summer Camp Finale

If you’re anything like our students and team, you may have a hard time believing we’re already in August! Aspire’s six-week, full-day summer learning camp wrapped up last Friday, and everyone agreed that this has been one of the best learning camps yet.

The World Cup enthusiasm energized students through lessons on statistics and science, took them to different parts of the world, and showed them how important it is to work in teams and communicate effectively with each other. While we were sad to say goodbye to the students, we’ll be welcoming many of them back in a month for the start of our afterschool program!

Aspire for Best After-School Enrichment Program

Arlington Magazine’s Best of Arlington survey is now live! Please vote for Aspire Afterschool Learning as the Best After-School Enrichment Program. Visit https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/best-of-arlington-survey/ to cast your vote. Voting closes September 5. We appreciate your support!

Week Five: Asia

Week five of summer camp focused on countries in the World Cup that are part of the Asia continent. Students’ knowledge was learned and tested through activities such as: 

• Defining the cause of monsoons. Students learned how monsoons are formed by creating a “cloud in a jar” that simulated rain clouds with a plastic cup with dyed blue water, shaving cream, and pipettes! 
• Comparing historic forms of soccer to modern-day soccer. We traveled back in time to Ancient China to explore the history of Cuju, participated in hands-on games to compare the game to modern soccer, and demonstrated how early forms of soccer were played during history. 
• Building the Great Wall of China. Students worked together to design and build a mini version of the Great Wall of China using cups, tape, and construction paper. Challenge teams competed against each other to build the longest and strongest standing wall!
• Designing their own Football Jersey by drawing from different cultures!. After using their creative skills, students shared what inspired their design and showed off their creations. 
• Understanding the economics around the World Cup. Students learned how host cities and countries bring in money through visitors and tourism, tickets, and job creation. But they also need to spend money on things like buildings, stadiums, and improving roads and transportation. 
• Learning about migrant workers and the workforce behind the World Cup. Students watched a short documentary about migrant workers and their experience moving to Qatar to construct buildings for the 2022 World Cup, then discussed why people become migrant workers and the challenges they face.

Week Six: Oceania

For the final week of Aspire’s summer learning camp, students explored Australia and the islands that make up the Oceania region. Students brought lots of energy and excitement to all of the activities, but a few stood out as their favorite. They especially enjoyed:

• Becoming sports analysts by determining which Oceania soccer teams perform the best! After deciding how to figure out the best team (coolest colors and best players were popular options, but they ultimately landed on best performance), they worked in teams to add up each team’s total wins and losses, then created a graph and a bracket to show their findings.
• Competing to build a boat that could carry the most weight! After learning about buoyancy, they were set loose on the “Boat Materials Store.” Students had access to materials like tape, straw, aluminum foil, cardstock, and cling wrap, but they had to carefully budget their team’s funds to decide what to buy for their boat. When they were ready, tiny ducks were added to each boat to see how many passengers they could hold.
• Practicing their communications skills by working in teams to build two towers. The twist? They had to build the first tower without any talking! No speaking, no writing, no words at all! Any talking meant their towers were taken apart. Then, after they finished, they built a second tower and were able to talk with each other. These towers were much taller, and students were amazed at how much more effective they were when they could communicate better.
• Creating dot paintings using Australian Aboriginal traditions. They sketched a nature-inspired design on their paper, then used Q-tips to make tiny dots that filled in their design with colors, patterns, and textures.
• Exploring possible careers as travel agents! After researching a different island in Oceania, they created pamphlets and pitches for why tourists should visit. 
• Learning how to tell AI photos from real photos. Aspire is working on a new logic curriculum to help students practice critical thinking skills, and students got a sneak preview of it during the last week of camp! Lots of students had already seen AI generated photos before, and now they discussed why people decide to make AI photos before seeing how many photos they could accurately identify as real or AI. What sort of things did they notice in AI photos?
  • Animals in unusual positions
  • People looking “airbrushed” or in strange locations
  • Details like fingers or writing being off

Field Trip Fun: Water Park and Soccer Game!

To celebrate the end of Aspire’s summer camp and the hard work that students did over the past six weeks, students visited Splash Down Water Park for one of the most-anticipated events of the year! They floated in the lazy river, sped down the water slides, and enjoyed the cool water on a hot day with their friends. 

Middle school students also got a special treat: they got to go to a professional soccer game! 60+ students attended the Washington Spirit vs North Carolina Courage game, and loved cheering their team on, leading chants for the crowd, and getting swept up in the excitement. The girls especially loved seeing the women’s teams perform at such a high level!

Field trips are one of the most memorable parts of summer camp for students, and our team works hard to make sure that students have opportunities to explore new parts of their community, broaden their horizons, and have fun!

Students Rock On 

The Aspire student rock band, the Jackson Nine, rocked on at two public performances recently! They performed their original song, “Batalla,” their famous cover of “Seven Nation Army,” and individual solos by the drummer and the ukelele player. The guitarist even got to perform a song with one of the adult bands, after a lot of dedicated practice and concentration. These events were a fun celebration of the talents of our students!

Big thanks to the adult bands who volunteered their time and talent: Angel Roads, APM, and the Stacks. Thank you as well as our venue sponsor, Clare and Don’s Beach Shack.

To read more about this event, check out some of the media coverage on ARLNow and the Columbia Pike Documentary Project.