“DIG” Into 6th Grade — Dream, Ignite, Grow Transition Workshops

Entering sixth grade can be a tough transition for any student, and especially when one is starting a new middle school experience with online learning. As part of our new fall programming, Project Success launched ‘Dream-Ignite-Grow’ (DIG) – a workshop designed to welcome students to sixth grade and help ease that transition. Using nature metaphors, students were encouraged to identify what they are bringing with them to middle school, assess what they need to transition into being a middle school student, and gather information about their new school.

We partnered with six MPS middle schools on the project.  To make these students feel welcome and bring some extra joy to their lives while learning from home, Project Success mailed 1500  individual DIG seed pots to students for them to grow and care for throughout this key development year.

Project Success facilitators delivered a curriculum in students’ ELA online classes or teachers were able to utilize a pre-recorded workshop to share with their students. The workshop posed questions such as:

• What strengths are you bringing to your middle school classroom and community?
• How can we as a community support each other while growing through middle school?

And students were encouraged to engage in supplemental activities such as a ‘Seed Journal’ – to practice creative writing as they imagined what it would be like to be a newly planted seed and how it grows over each month, or get some exercise via a ‘Transformation Walk’ to explore their space and different ways to move.

Laura Garcia, Director of Schools and Curriculum, shared one of the metaphors from the workshop: “A plant needs water, love, and sun, but it doesn’t only need that, it needs attention and your middle school year will need attention.  You might forget to water it for a day, and that’s ok!  You can water it the next day and keep going.  Just like you may make mistakes, you might forget to turn in an assignment but you can get back on track and keep going!”

The students will watch their plants grow and evolve just as they will do themselves throughout their first middle school year, knowing Project Success is there to support them on their journey each step of the way.