Every learner makes a card for themselves - stats, what they're levelling up, their special ability, and what they need from the tribe. Then the whole studio reads each other's. It's the most summer-camp thing we do all week and it produces the artifact we'll use most.
By 3:15 today, every learner has a finished card on the wall - and has read enough of everyone else's to know who to go to for what.
All cards finished and displayed. A missing card on the wall says something loud about who belongs.
Not just strengths. If the needs fields are all blank or jokey, the guide's own card wasn't brave enough.
Sticky notes spread across the whole studio, not clustered on four popular kids.
Standard rhythm. Greet every learner by name. The Daily Thinking Puzzle is up by the cubbies.
Bell, tidy, walk to the launch space. By Week 2 this should need no narration - if it does, narrate it once more.
Talking points, not a script. Hit these in your own words - the studio can tell the difference, and the ones that land are the ones you actually mean.
The opener (3 min):
Hold up your own finished Trading Card. Don't explain it yet - just read it out loud, all five fields, including the awkward one.
Then: "That's mine. Everybody's making one this afternoon."
The core (12 min):
Walk the five fields on the board:
Spend most of the time on special ability and what I need, because those are the two that make the card useful rather than decorative.
On special ability: "It has to be something a person could actually walk up and ask you for. 'Being nice' isn't one. 'Explaining fractions a different way' is one. 'Helping someone find the start of a story' is one."
On needs: "This is the one that feels weird to write down. It shouldn't. Everyone in this room needs something to do their best work - we established that on Monday. Writing it down just means people don't have to guess."
The close (5 min):
"Two rules for this afternoon. One: every single person finishes a card, no exceptions, they all go on the wall. Two: no card is a joke card. You can be funny - several of you are - but the card has to be true."
Make your own card before today. Not a sketch, not a plan - a finished one, at the quality you want theirs to be. Yours sets the ceiling in both directions: if your "what I need" is safe and shallow, every card in the room will be safe and shallow. Put something genuinely true on it. "I need quiet for the first ten minutes of the morning or I'm short with people" is the register you're aiming for - real, but not heavy enough to make a ten-year-old worry about you.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Standard rhythm.
Guide circulates during the draft with one question only: "Could somebody actually come and ask you for that?"
All studios together. D2's job today is to be the studio that models what good looks like - sitting well, hands up, building on each other.
Name it before you walk over: "Spark is going to be watching how D2 sits in there. Not because you have to perform - because next week you're going to be up there helping them, and this is where they decide whether they trust you."
Standard rhythm.
The Personal Working Guide is a private document. The Trading Card is the public version of it. Two things happen when they exist: saying "here's what I need" becomes an ordinary thing to do out loud, and "what I'm good at" turns into a resource the whole studio can actually go and use. This is also the most straightforwardly fun block of the week - let it feel like camp craft hour, because that's what it is.
Setup: Cards pre-cut to a generous size - roughly 4×6 inches works far better than real trading-card size for handwriting. Five fields printed faintly on the back, or drawn on the board for copying.
1 - The model (5 min):
Your card again, briefly. Then hand it to a learner and let it circulate while they work. Yours should end up dog-eared.
2 - The build (25 min):
3 - The gallery (12 min):
4 - The close (8 min):
Carry forward: The cards go up in a display where they can be pulled down and read - a pocket chart, a pegboard, string and clips, anything that isn't sealed behind glass. From now on, when a learner is stuck this year, the guide's first line is: "Go read the cards. Who's got the special ability you need?" Say it enough times in September and by November they'll go without being told.
Standard rhythm, 20 minutes. Card display goes up as part of maintenance - learners hang it.
Rich day for callouts. Watch for whoever wrote the bravest "what I need," and whoever left sticky notes on someone they don't usually talk to.
One question: "Whose special ability are you going to use first?"
Send-off at the door, by name, with eye contact. Every learner, every day.
Talking points for this week's email. Drop these into an AI assistant along with two or three live notes from your actual week - a name, a moment, something that surprised you - and it'll give you a draft in your own voice. The specifics are what make it land; the structure below is just the scaffolding.
The draft underneath is an example of the shape and the tone, not a template to send as-is. A parent who gets the same email as every other parent can tell.
Subject: Ask to see their trading card
Hi families,
Today every learner made a trading card for themselves. Five things on it: their name, three things they're good at, one thing they're currently levelling up, their "special ability" - the thing someone could come to them for - and what they need from the studio to do their best work.
That last one is the point of the whole exercise. We spent Monday on the idea that everyone needs something different in order to fully take part, and the card is where that stops being a concept and becomes a sentence in your kid's handwriting on our wall.
Then they read each other's and left notes saying "I'd come to you for ___." The cards live on the wall now, and when someone's stuck this year my first answer is going to be "go read the cards."
Worth asking tonight: what's your special ability, and whose are you going to use first?
- [your name]