Curiosity Chronicles: August at Saturday Kids

It’s been a hectic August for us big kids at Saturday Kids! In the midst of the creative chaos, we continue to celebrate milestones, share creative ripples, and make space for learning. Here’s a snapshot of our month. 

August in milestones:

Where do we start with all that’s been happening this month? August began with a shift of our HQ – we’re now located within Found8 along Anson Road, and loving our new seaview on the 23rd floor. Together with over 50 volunteers and 300 kids, we launched our final run of Code in the Community for 2019. Sadly, we bade farewell to a batch of talented interns from NUS and SUTD, as well as to Momo, one of our founding team members in Japan (she wrote a moving post about the work she’ll be doing at a school for refugee kids – read it here). Our passionate Coding Cats instructors over in Phnom Penh completed another labour of love: translating the entire Scratch platform into Khmer, making it significantly easier for Cambodian kids to begin learning to code by removing the language barrier. This was coupled with another exciting development – the roll out of Tiny Coding Cats, a free 5 week pilot we’re running with Raintree Cambodia for younger Cambodian kids ages 8-12 to learn Scratch. Finally, we’ve released the details for our popular Unplugged Summer Camp in Japan in June 2020, and we’re already looking forward to getting more kids curious about the wilderness.

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Team recos:

What we’ve been diggin’ this August!

Victoria, Code in the Community manager, stumbled on the Bollywood movie “3 Idiots” “The show is fantastic, I am a huge fan, and the message to take home is one that’s close to my heart. It always reminds me to live life bravely, without taking on fears that society wants us to adopt just to keep us in check – which reminds me of some of the values that Saturday Kids stands for.”

Marketing lead Nicole recommends the book “Hard at Work: Life in Singapore”. “I really enjoyed this book because it shares the dreams, aspirations and struggles from a diverse group of people living and working in Singapore and helps me see Singapore through a different lens.”

Content creator Yeehui is obsessed with the choreography of American jazz dancer Nicholas Palmquist, whose work will make your heart swell. You can check it out here on Instagram.

Momo, rocket launcher and project manager over at Saturday Kids Japan, shared this video (it’s in Japanese!) about an organisation in Japan looking to hire a CFO. Their requirement – candidates have to be below 18 years old. As Momo asks, “What is our responsibility as adults? There are so many ignorant adults.”

Michael, who runs operations and volunteer management, enjoyed “Divine Fury“, a horror flick that he describes as the Korean version of 2005’s Constantine. Aside from the action sequences he loved that packed a punch and raised interesting theological questions about religion.

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Link library:

It’s not often that you come across a computer game described as ‘moving’. Read about Kind Words, a multi-player game that encourages personal vulnerability, empathy, and connection.

One of our favourite storytellers and programmers, Linda Liukas, curated curious content at the intersection of AI and pedagogy, here.

How might we introduce kids to the climate crisis we’re facing? Through stories, perhaps. Here are some books for kids, inspired by what has been called the ‘Greta effect’.

We appreciated this chat Rice Media’s Grace Yeoh had with Education Minister Ong Ye Kung, all about the subject of failure.

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What’s on?

1. There’re still got a couple of spots left for our upcoming holiday creative coding camps! Check out our schedule to find a fit for your curious kid.
2. We’re goin’ unplugged again and we’d love you to join us! The dates for our Saturday Kids Unplugged Summer Camp in Japan have just been released for June 2020 and we’ve just opened registrations. Find out more here.
3. Our team over in Tokyo is piloting a new programme for kids ages 7-9 to build their own world as they learn coding and English as a second language. Learn more about Saturdayland, and share this with friends in Tokyo!