Disclosure:: This post is sponsored by Episcopal School of Acadiana.
Give Your Student a Screen Break and Inspire Creativity
With almost everything going virtual these days, students are spending more time than ever in front of computer screens.
Even students who attend school in-person are having virtual meetings and assemblies. To give screen-weary eyes a break and jumpstart creativity, we’re sharing a few offline challenges ESA teachers have given upper elementary and middle school students this fall.
Superheroes behind the masks
Language arts teacher Coty Eastin’s fourth and fifth grade students spent time identifying their own strengths – from expert doodling to positivity. Each student wrote a short story about the superhero’s adventures, then drew a picture of their alter ego ready to use their strength for good!
Your own personal logo
Seventh graders in graphic designer and art teacher Kate Ferry’s class are designing their own personal logos. Ms. Ferry charged students with creating brands that reflect their personalities and crafting logos that could be used on hats, masks, or even the backs of greeting cards.
Write a novel next month
Each fall, ESA eighth graders participate in the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program. NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. The fast pace forces writers to get rid of their inner editors and let 
their imaginations take over. Through the Young Writers Program, English teacher Reese Fuller works with his students to set individual word counts, with an average goal of 15,000 words. In the month of October, they examine their favorite novels and discuss characters and settings, building conflict, outlining plot, and writing dialogue. Then, from late October to just before Thanksgiving, they follow a common mantra: Write now. Edit later. Some choose to type their stories, but for many of them, writing by hand helps to avoid the pitfalls of surfing the internet and procrastinating. The point of the program is quantity over quality. As Mr. Fuller says, “Nothing is too weird.” The Young Writers Program welcomes families to participate, and offers online resources to get started, as well as pep talks to keep going.
