Field Trip

Wow... it's been a long time since I posted, no wonder I have lots to say!  We had our field trip the first of April to MacBeth and the "fancy" restaurant.  The kids did awesome!  They might not have been thrilled with the idea of MacBeth, but they enjoyed the fighting scenes and the ghosts.  Lunch was great, I highly recommend Ferrari's Italian Restaurante in Cedar Falls.  They were very accommodating for our group and the food was very good. I managed to get all the kids to at least TRY the calamari and crab stuffed mushrooms.  I may have not told them what the ingredients were until after they tried it!  Broadening their horizons!  That is our goal!! YEA!!

Spring Break Week

Isn't it amazing how when we are relaxing and not at school we are still completely engaged with thinking about our kids and what we can do different or more?

I spent a couple of my days off in Kansas City with a girlfriend and her daughter.  We had planned a weekend of shopping, BBQ, and water slides at Cocoa Key Water Park. It was supposed to be a shut off the work brain and turn on the fun side... yep, I had a good time but I was constantly thinking of school.

I had to find my way to the hotel with the GPS on my phone and was reminded of my students and how they feel when given directions.  "Turn West on 39th Street" meant NOTHING to me when I was in an unfamiliar area, and in my frustration I connected with my students' frustration when given not specific directions.

Checking in would have presented another frustrating situation for students as every hotel registration form seems to be different.  I had paid online, so all I had to do was sign, but I'm OCD and had to read it to make sure that everything matched what I thought it should be.   The directions to our room were given so quickly that thank goodness there were four sets of ears listening because between all of us we were able to construct meaning and find our room.

We think of employability and academic tasks and some life skills.  Rarely do we think of leisure activities such as listening for appreciation, applications (like hotels) for students to fill out, and finding out about and find ways to do fun things. I need to think on this more and find ways to integrate them into instruction as well...

Life is... a Stage

Okay, the quote is all the world's a stage; and it's Shakespeare... You may be wondering what in the world that has to do with transition activities... Well, my co-teachers and I  are taking 17 of our junior and senior students to see a performance of MacBeth at UNI on April 1.  Following the play we will go to a very fancy sit-down meal at an Italian Restaurant in Waterloo.  We are financing it through a grant we applied for from the Target Foundation.  We are dubbing it "Dinner and a Show" and are having a grand time planning for it.  It may be a few weeks away, but I'm excited and it is a great opportunity for our students!

We are doing some preparatory lessons for the students; currently we are focusing on table manners.  There are some really great sources for lesson plans for manners.  We have used the following:
 http://www.tc.umn.edu/~gale0025/Manners.pdf
http://www.etiquettescholar.com/dining_etiquette/table_manners/table_manner_tips.html

Once we are feeling confident about the kids' ability to behave themselves in the restaurant we plan to introduce them to MacBeth.  Our high school literature classes read Romeo and Juliet as well as Othello; but do not touch MacBeth.  Personally, Hamlet is my favorite work of Shakespeare, but I guess MacBeth will have to do!   I found an interesting webquest type interactive online version of MacBeth that I want my students to do the week prior to attending the play.  You can find it here:
http://library.thinkquest.org/2888/

I am excited for our field trip, it is fun to prepare for and gives us all something to look forward to.  The kids may not be thrilled with our choice of play...  but they are excited for a day away from school and a nice lunch.

Thanks to the Target Foundation... I'll post pictures from our day after the field trip!!

Welcome!

Life is... A Game that is being played in the Star Center.

This year the other teachers and I decided that our students need to think about their futures and spend time thinking about all of those little events that happen that aren't planned for.  

We enlisted the aid of Mrs. Owens' son Zac and he drew the Game Board from the Game of Life on one of the white boards in the Star Center.  He was equipped with a whole handful of brand new multi-colored permanent markers and he did an AWESOME job.  Once the board was designed, he handed off the baton to Mrs. Tripp to fill in the squares on "track" with the directions of what to do.  She added a few special artistic touches (stop by and see the lovely self-portrait she added to the middle of it) and we were ready to have kids participate.  The students were all given business card sized magnets with card stock attached (instead of the "cars") and asked to design a magnet that would identify them from all the other students in the class.  

The game took on a whole new life of its own, and while some students were very diligent with playing every day, others weren't.  Imagine... just like real life!!

While, it hasn't been a perfect experiment in "The Real World," it's a step towards the conversations we want to have and should be having.