Into the water.

Different arrival today. Every learner gets checked off a list at the door: swimsuit on under clothes, towel, full change of clothes, water bottle, shoes that can get wet.

Have spares. Someone will forget a towel, and a kid sitting out because of a towel is an avoidable tragedy.

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 safety brief first (8 min). Not a formality - the first thing said today, before any excitement is built.

• Who the lifeguard is and where they'll be. Point at them when you arrive.
• Nobody enters the water without a guide's say-so. Ever. This is the one rule that has no version where breaking it is funny.
• The buddy system: your boat team is your buddy group in the water too. You count each other.
• What happens when a boat sinks: you stand up. That's it. The water is shallow, the boat is cardboard, and you will be completely fine.

The format (8 min):

1. Each boat gets one float run - rider in, thirty seconds, hands off the sides.
2. Boats that survive go into the distance round: how far across the pool before it gives out.
3. Every boat is cheered in and cheered out regardless of outcome. Say this now and enforce it once at the pool.

The awards (3 min): Read out the categories so teams know what's actually being celebrated. Only one of them is about floating:

• The Floater - longest time on the water
• Best Name - studio vote
• Most Spectacular Sinking - a genuinely coveted prize
• Best Crew - the team that worked best together, voted by the other teams
• Called It - the Exploration reviewer whose prediction was most accurate

The close (1 min):

"Four days ago this was flat cardboard and a drawing. Let's go find out."

• Teams do a last tape pass. Fifteen minutes, no structural changes - tape only.
• Boats carried out by their own teams. Four people, one boat, nobody dragging.
• Bag check: every learner has their kit. Guide has the first aid kit, forms, spare towels, sunscreen, and the camera.
• Toilet stop before boarding, said explicitly, for everyone.

• Bags down in one place. Boats staged away from the water's edge so nothing goes in early.
• Changing, then straight to the poolside circle.
• Lifeguard introduced by name and pointed at. Repeat the water rule once, here, where it counts.
• Sunscreen on before anything else happens.

Run of play:

1. One boat at a time. Everyone else out of the water and watching. This is the whole point - if four boats go in at once nobody sees anything.
2. Before each run, the team says the boat's name and reads out their Exploration sticky-note prediction aloud. Then the float run.
3. Thirty seconds, counted out loud by the whole studio.
4. Cheer in, cheer out. Every boat. The sinking ones get more noise, not less - the guide sets that volume personally on the first sinking.
5. Distance round for survivors, once every boat has had its float run.
6. Salvage: sunken boats come out of the water immediately. Wet cardboard breaks up fast and the pool has to be left clean.

The moment to watch for: a team whose boat fails badly. What they do in the next ten seconds is the most important thing that happens all day. If a teammate blames the rider, step in immediately and quietly. If they laugh together, let it run and name it later at Callouts.

Earned, unstructured, guide-supervised. Buddy groups still count each other in and out.

Same protocols as studio lunch, outdoors. Guides eat with the studio. Shade and water pushed hard - nobody notices dehydration at a pool.

12:45–1:15 - second free swim.

1:15–1:30 - the awards, poolside, wet, in the moment. Do these here rather than back at the studio - the ceremony only works while everyone's still soaked.

• Studio votes on Best Name and Best Crew by show of hands.
• Guide announces The Floater, Most Spectacular Sinking, and Called It.
• Prizes should be small, silly and physical. A ribbon beats a certificate.

• Everyone changed and dry before boarding. Wet swimwear bagged.
• Boat salvage: whatever's left gets broken down and taken for recycling. Leave the site better than found - this is Studio Maintenance in a different building, and worth naming as such.
• Head count before leaving. Then again. Then a third time.

Tired, sunburnt, and still full of it. Don't over-run this - but don't skip it either, because a day like today evaporates by Monday if nobody names what happened.

Four questions, round the circle:

1. What did your boat do that you expected?
2. What did it do that you didn't?
3. Which decision from Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday showed up in the water today?
4. What would your team do differently if you had the four sessions again?

Then close the week properly, and connect the two halves of it out loud:

"This week you did two things that look completely different. You built a boat with people you didn't pick, and you sat on the floor with a five-year-old who wanted you to read the same page four times. They're the same skill. Both of them are about being useful to someone else on their terms instead of yours. That's what this whole week was."

Then ICEE #3 (10 min) - if the day has any left in it:

Adventure Days don't carry the Friday ritual stack, and this one is a full day out ending in a tired, sunburnt studio. So read the room: if there is genuinely nothing left, run it first thing Monday instead and say so out loud. What must not happen is it quietly disappearing - Week 3 is the hardest week of the quest and the trend chart comes out in Week 5, where a missing point is a hole exactly where the interesting part was.

• Same four numbers, self and studio: Intentionality, Civility, Excellence, Energy.
• The framing that makes it honest today: "Rate this week truthfully - including the fact that it was probably the best week and also the hardest. Those aren't contradictory and the numbers don't have to be tidy."
• Guide rates themselves aloud first, as always.
• Do it on paper on the floor of the studio, tired and sunburnt. That's a legitimate condition for an honest answer - and if it isn't, Monday morning is the fallback, not skipping it.

Share Chair is skipped this week, and say so rather than letting it quietly vanish: "No Share Chair today - we were at a pool. Anything you've written this week gets read next Friday." The 360 is covered by the debrief circle you've just run.

The build zone comes down for good today. Cardboard scraps out, tape stubs binned, tools away, floor swept, space returned to being a studio.

Progress photos from all four sessions go up on the wall alongside the fleet photo. The boats are gone; the record of them shouldn't be.

The best Callouts of the quest so far are available today. Push past "it was fun" toward the specific: who held it together when their boat folded, who cheered loudest for a rival team, who carried someone else's boat, who took the Exploration prediction seriously on Thursday and was right to.

One question: "What's the thing about today you'll still remember in June?" Quick round, no elaboration.

Send-off by name. Families will ask - let the learners tell it. Stand back and let them do the talking at the door.