Adventures in After School Learning Blog

-By Mike DeBritz on Monday, May 21, 2012

Here is a sample from our Playing with Percussion DVD where Brian Melick walks teachers and students through the playing techniques for shakers.  This is the first of five home made percussion instruments students make and play throughout the course.  At the end of each activity, kids have fun starting a musical conversation with the Call and Response technique. Enjoy!

-By Mike DeBritz on Monday, April 30, 2012

Kids can't live without their cell phones and especially love smartphones with all their enhanced capabilities. These devices make text messaging seem old school compared to how easy it is to be on the web or chat over video with friends. 

The video below demonstrates an app that harnesses the incredible power of smartphones to help people eat better.  This could be interesting idea for young people to really analyze what they eat everyday.   

How would you feel about sharing this kind of information with your friends?

-By Mike DeBritz on Monday, April 23, 2012

If you need to reach out and involve more High School (or mature Middle School) students this summer, we have a great opportunity! 

Our Screenwriting for Short Video: An Introduction for Teens kit has everything you need to run an engaging mini course on this high interest topic!

This 10-unit program is designed to engage older students in a highly participatory and intriguing study of movie-making. Kids know when they like a film...after taking this class they'll understand why!

Our approach to the weekly activities is to first introduce students to concepts of screenwriting like the three-act structure, creating characters and writing dialogue.

Then students will look at award-winning teen-produced movies as examples. This drives each concept home but also helps students visualize themselves sitting in the director's chair.

Next students participate in a critique, and move to working on applying these concepts to their own short video scripts.

In ten fun-filled weeks, students will walk away with a working knowledge of video storytelling and complete a script with a meaningful theme, characters and scenes ready to shoot!

We've worked hard to make this kit affordable and easy to maintain for future use. The complete package, which includes materials for a class of 20 students, is only $695!

To learn more about this program and review the detailed program outline, click here.  Or if you're inspired, click here to order!

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Now that all the evidence has been analyzed, your junior CSI’s will determine which suspect they believe is guilty of smashing Mrs. Johnson’s cookie jar and stealing her cookies.  In this final module, students analyze all the evidence and prepare their case for a mock trial.

            Mrs. Johnson consulted her lesson plan and counted to herself on her fingers, trying to estimate how long it would take to help her students finally bring the case of the Cookie Jar Mystery to a close. It had been a few weeks since she and her students had discovered her broken cookie jar lying on the floor of her classroom.

            She looked out across her class and smiled silently and proudly. Every student’s head was down and every pencil was moving, dutifully completing her “Quick Forensic Review Quiz.” The students had done some amazing work over the past several class periods, and the quiz was designed to help them remember how they had come to think about evidence, crime, investigations, and their classroom experiments.

            After a few moments, the students began to complete their quizzes, and quietly came up to her desk to leave their sheets to be graded. Each student then returned to his or her desk, and waited for their classmates to finish.

            After 15 minutes had passed, everyone had completed the test.

            “Very good, class,” began Mrs. Johnson. “I’ll grade your quizzes tonight.”

            Mark raised his hand and Mrs. Johnson called on him. “Mrs. J, now that we’ve identified the guilty party, how is the criminal going to be punished?”

            Mrs. Johnson knew that moving her students to the next level of understanding was not going to be easy. “Well, Mark, what do you think we should do with the perpetrator?”

            “How about bake cookies once a week for the rest of the year!” suggested Mark.

            “AND buy you a new cookie jar!” Ashley chimed in.

            “So you think we’ve proven that our suspect is guilty, is that it?” asked Mrs. Johnson.

            “Well, wasn’t that the point?” asked Marta, a thoughtful girl from the Chess Club. “We gathered the evidence that—at least from my point of view—makes it almost completely unlikely that anyone else could have committed the crime.”

            “I’m with Marta,” said George. “We found so much evidence, especially with the hair and fiber experiments.”

            “Yeah,” added Jennifer. “We even found the suspect’s blood type at the scene of the crime.”

            “You’re all correct,” continued Mrs. Johnson. “That is the evidence. But in our roles as crime scene technicians, our jobs are to collect, identify, catalog, and process evidence. That is what we have done. . .”

            Mrs. Johnson paused. “In fact, let’s imagine that that’s exactly what we have done. Imagine that we were working for a police department. After we’ve dealt with all of the evidence, we write up our results (just as we would do with any science experiment). In order to make sure that we’ve followed proper procedure, we need to test our conclusion. It sure looks like we have figured out who broke the cookie jar, but we are just technicians. What would happen in a real crime?”

            Ashley’s hand was in the air. “The police would come and arrest the suspect.”

            “Correct.”

            “And the police would put the suspect in jail!” exclaimed Jack. “For a long, long time!”

“Hold on, Jack. You’re right about the suspect going to jail. But the police cannot keep the person in jail forever.”                  

            “But we proved our suspect is guilty!”

            Mrs. Johnson chose her next words carefully. “I think it’s very tempting to think we have solved the crime and proven the suspect guilty. But to be fair, that’s not really our jobs as forensic scientists. Like I said, we had to collect and process the evidence, and we did. But now it’s up to someone else to punish the criminal. And the only people with the power to do that are a judge and jury.”

            “I know where you’re going with this, Mrs. Johnson. The suspect has rights, too,” said Marta suddenly. “The suspect can’t be sent to jail just because we say so. We’re not a judge and jury. The suspect has a right to a trial.”

            “And a lawyer,” added George.

            “But we’re not lawyers!” whined Ashley.

            “Well, a few weeks ago we weren’t forensic scientists, either,” said Jack. “But look at us now.”

            “I believe you can be anything you want to be,” said Mrs. Johnson.

            “I could be a judge!” volunteered Marta.

            “A lawyer for me!” exclaimed Mark.

            “Me, too!” said Jennifer. “Or maybe I could just be on the witness stand, you know, like an expert!”

            “What do you say, Mrs. Johnson?” asked George. “Do you think we could have a trial?”

            Mrs. Johnson turned on her heel and reached down to floor behind her desk. Suddenly she stood up with a thick pile of envelopes in her hand. She handed one to each student.

            “A trial,” she began mischievously, “...is exactly what I had in mind.”

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Now the investigation turns to the most unique evidence on the case...DNA.

Mrs. Johnson was late to class; all of her science students were already seated at their desks as she dumped her books and took off her long raincoat.

           “Sorry, everyone,” she began. “Take out your notes and let’s get right back into our crime scene investigation!”

            For several days, Mrs. Johnson’s students had been conducting experiments trying to determine who had broken their teacher’s cookie jar. Papers were shuffled and chairs scraped noisily along the floor as the students readied themselves. Mrs. Johnson took a quick glance around the room as she opened her attendance book.

            “Hey, Mrs. Johnson. What happened to your arm?”

            Mrs. Johnson was touched, but she kindly brushed off Jack’s concern. “Oh this?” she began, indicating the bandage in the crook of her right arm. “I was late because I was giving blood down at the firehouse.”

            “Ooooh, does it hurt to give blood?” asked Ashley anxiously.

            “There’s a little pinch when they put the needle in your arm, but giving blood is very important. It doesn’t take long. My blood type is AB+, and it’s a relatively rare type, so I am happy to be a blood donor. When you kids get older, I hope you’ll consider being blood donors, too!”

            “You know, Mrs. J, one of our suspects was sort of a ‘blood donor’--he (or she) must have cut himself on the cookie jar when it was broken. We collected a blood sample at the crime scene.”

            “Very good, Jack. That’s right.”

            “Well, if we test the blood and can figure out the type, maybe we can match it to one of our suspects,” said George.

            “That’s true,” replied Mrs. Johnson. “Luckily, I DO know the blood type of each of our suspects. Today, we’re going to ‘type’ our crime scene blood sample.”

            Emily spoke up quickly. She couldn’t keep the puzzled look off her face. “But if our suspects have the same blood type, that won’t help us figure out who the criminal is.”

            “Well, let’s consider the blood typing as a good place to start,” said Mrs. Johnson. “If we aren’t able to match the type to just one suspect, we’ll have to go one step further.”

            “But what else could we do?” asked Emily with exasperation. “I’m not sure we’re ever going to solve this case!”

            Mrs. Johnson lifted an amused eyebrow and looked out at her students. She was proud of the work they had done so far, but she knew they were capable of even more. “Today, we’re going to push our limits as forensic scientists,” she announced. “Has anyone here ever heard of DNA?”

Continue to the conclusion of this mystery in Law and Order here!

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The new version of the Cookie Jar Mystery targeted for smaller centers and in-school science programs will have a couple new features.  The biggest of which is engaging kids with a story throughout each module. This is designed to peak students' curiosity and build suspense as each activity moves them on step closer to solving the mystery.  

 Below is the part one of the story that kicks off  The Crime Scenario:        

            It was just after 9 a.m. when Mrs. Johnson, a popular science teacher at Crooked Creek Middle School, made her way to her 9:15 science class. She’d spent her first period of the day in the teachers’ lounge, correcting papers and drinking coffee.

            Outside the classroom door, she looked briefly at her watch, and shifted her clumsy armload of student folders and papers.  “The students will be here in ten minutes,” she muttered as she nudged at the partially open door. Strange, she thought to herself, the classroom door is usually closed. She located the light switch and flipped it on.

            “Oh-oh!” began the teacher. “This does not look good!”

            The broken glass scattered in front of her desk surprised Mrs. Johnson. Not only was the glass dangerous, she wondered immediately if anyone had been hurt. She set her pile of books down on a nearby student desk and approached the mess on the floor, careful not to touch anything. 

            Sadly, Mrs. Johnson recognized the broken glass as fragments from her famous cookie jar that was normally kept locked up in the storage cabinet. Scattered among the broken glass, Mrs. Johnson could see remnants of the two dozen chocolate chip cookies she’d brought in the day before. There were only a few cookies left; clearly someone (or something!) had been interrupted in the act of stealing the cookies, and had broken the cookie jar in the process.

            Who could have done such a thing?

            The school bell signaled that her next class was about to start. Within a minute, several students entered the science classroom. Immediately, they began to talk about the disarray. As they moved towards Mrs. Johnson’s desk, she cautioned them sternly: “Let’s not disturb anything here. Please, be careful!”

            “Mrs. Johnson, what happened? Did you knock your cookie jar off the desk?” asked Jack, one her brightest students.

            “No, I didn’t. But I can see why you might think so!” answered the teacher.

            Ashley, another student, let her backpack slip to the floor.  “Are you going to call the police?”           

            “She doesn’t just need the police,” interrupted Mark, a tall 8^th-grader with a keen sense of humor. “Mrs. Johnson needs a detective!”

            An idea suddenly popped into Ms. Johnson’s head. “You’re right, Mark! I do need a detective! Luckily, I’ve got a whole classroom full! I don’t know what happened here, but I bet we can figure that out! Quickly, everyone, get your notebooks and pens—be careful not to disturb our little ‘crime scene’ here—and let’s get to work!”

            “What are we going to do, Mrs. Johnson?” asked Ashley.

            Mrs. Johnson smiled. “We…” she began slowly, with a twinkle in her eye, “are going to solve The Cookie Jar Mystery!”

You can solve The Cookie Jar Mystery too! Join your classmates in the activities in Module 1.  As you begin to understand the processes of forensic science, you’ll find new clues and evidence to point you in the direction of the guilty party. Proceed to Activity 1 to start your investigation!

Continue the story in the next module, Always Leave a Note, here!

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Crowdfunding has picked up speed over the last couple of years with small businesses learning the finer points of promoting their projects and financial needs to large groups of people. 

So how can this trend benefit after school programs and other social enterprises?

The concept of getting buy-in from strangers to get behind a worthy project is closely tied to an individual’s social network.  How well a person can leverage their family and friends with the first wave of donations is critical.  Once a campaign picks up speed with friends telling their friends, others are likely to jump in and upward the dollars go!

Many programs have large numbers of former students and families who’ve greatly benefited from your services, which is a huge advantage. This is your social currency and built in fan base that would most likely help spread the word!

A little research may be well worth your time seeing how others have positioned their campaigns and how successful they were in reaching their goal.  Think about culminating events around one of your focus areas, such as bringing in a STEM related presenter or a visiting artist. 

Here are three projects I found with an after school angle that may provide inspiration:

• Think College Now After School Program
• After School Arts Program
• Children’s After School Music Program

With the large number of potential services to help your effort, it’s probably a good idea to narrow the field by beginning with sites such as Causes, Crowdrise, Network for Good, and FirstGiving.  Many of them have how-to articles and solid advice on planning a campaign.

Overall this is a interesting phenomenon worth exploring for after school programs.

Do you have a dream project that needs a financial jump start? This could be your big opportunity!

-By Mike DeBritz on Thursday, December 29, 2011

Along the same lines as the new versions of the  “Cookie Jar Mystery” and “Missing Money Mystery” we’re developing a smaller version of “Playing with Percussion” to be released in March.

We’ve heard from a number of sites interested in introducing students to world music but in a shorter format.  Our new version will focus on eight core lessons that can be delivered sequentially or standalone. They include step-by-step instructions on instrument construction and playing techniques. But now sites will be able to purchase just the Instructor’s Guide and DVD with student activity sheets provided on CD (similar to photo).

This new kit will allow sites to involve more students by building the activities and supplies (we’ll provide the shopping list) around the targeted population of kids. Also, site leaders can utilize the kit to productively fill any gaps in their instructors' schedules.

In addition, bonus material will be included on the Resource CD with plans on how to make other interesting “found object” instruments from recycled materials. Once students understand the core rhythms they can apply these techniques to any of the newly built instruments. 

With all the emphasis on STEM this year these hands-on projects will help sites knock off another requirement that can categorized nicely under the “Science of Sound” heading. 

Have a Happy New Year!

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Have you heard of Evernote? 

It’s a very interesting tool that has unlimited possibilities for both students and teachers.  Evernote is designed to operate as an extension of your brain to help keep notes, pictures, presentations, recordings and websites organized.

Sounds good who couldn't use more brainpower now and then?

The story about the company that developed the product was recently featured in Inc Magazine as their "Company of the Year."  One secret to their success and widespread adoption is the low barrier to get started, which is free.

Take a look a this video below to see how one school is utilizing Evernote and harnessing technology to help kids learn.

Talk about teaching life skills!

-By Mike DeBritz on Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I'm certain many people have heard of Sir Ken Robinson and his famous TED talks.

I'm less certain about how many people have seen his ideas detailed on a whiteboard.  His talks are interesting and thought provoking to begin with but after watching this video a couple times I started to "see" his ideas differently and understand his thesis on an entirely different level. 

I think many after school providers know exactly what he means when he talks about where kids are today. 

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Happy Thanksgiving!