Wheels Day!

One activity done at our school is Wheels Day. This is a special time during our summer camp for the campers to ride their bicycles, scooters, or in-line skates. It wasn't part of our initial camp schedule this year, but the returning campers love it so much that both older and younger kids requested it be reinstated. Being responsive to the kids' interests is one of the great things about our camp!

For safety's sake, we have several rules to follow. Of course, campers must wear a helmet and we encourage knee and elbow pads for skates and padded gloves for bikers. The parking lot is closed off with cones clearly marking the direction the course. For younger kids, it's helpful to use sidewalk chalk to mark directional arrows on the pavement. The traffic goes in one direction with stopping and dismounting areas clearly established with the riders. Our course works best with about eight to ten riders, so kids are usually divided into groups based on age. The groupings allow newer riders to practice without distractions and more experienced riders to go a bit faster. As I supervise this activity, I act as "traffic cop" slowing down speeders and breaking up traffic jams. I also help with spills and equipment repairs. Band-aids and paper towels are handy.

Campers bring out their water bottles and can rest in the shade any time they want. I provide another activity in the shade, like drawing or a puzzle, for those who get tired or didn't bring wheels. We usually blast the Disney radio station on the boom box. Even though our course is short and time limited, kids seem to get a kick out of riding with freinds, trying out jumps on the speed bumps, and maybe even showing off with no hands!

Cassie's first blog

June 26, 2010
Assignment #1: How I will use a blog in the classroom
Class: Using Blogs as Effective Classroom Tools
Teacher: John La Ferlita

I have several reasons for wanting to learn how to create and use a Blog. I'm an assistant principal at a small private school. We have a website for our school provided by our corporate marketing department. It has a strict format with limits on what can be added or changed and at times appears canned. One reason I want to learn how to blog is to possibly create a sort of informal site that can be easily modified to share all the fantastic events and activities that are happening at our school. For example, we have a monthly All School Sing where individual musical talents are showcased. It would be great to write a quick blog with some uploaded photos or video on the day it happened. I think the blog would be more personalized and reflective of who we are and a great tool to reach out to parents and potential families.
Our teachers have websites that they can use to get information out to their students and parents. I hope to be able to share another tool that they can use for informal communication. Perhaps teachers and students will be able to set up a blog about a particular integrated study they are working on. For example, it would be great to have classrooms from other schools interact with the fourth graders when they are learning about Westward Migration. Perhaps students in the advanced math class can blog about their assignments or the art teacher can share more of her students' work with parents.
My last reason for learning how to blog is purely personal. I would like to blog about my creative hobbies including quilting, paper crafting, and gardening. I think it would be motivating to share what I'm doing and get feedback from others out there. I hope blogging will enable me to be more reflective about my work as well as expand my techniques and feed my creativity.