Project Red, White & Food

I've already shared many times that I'm an active volunteer with the Red Cross, and last year on 9/11, I shared my story from that day... and the weeks that followed as I served at the Pentagon with the national Disaster Relief Operation. Last year was also the first year that community service club I co-sponsor created an activity for this day.
This year, in recognition of the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance, club students created Project Red, White And Food. Our school colors are red, white & blue, so the name was both recognition of the school and of our chosen project. We chose to make sandwiches to donate to the DC Central Kitchen.
The club set up stations during all of the school lunch shifts, and each student had the opportunity to make a sandwich. Everybody that made a sandwich received a foam sticker in the shape of a piece of food as a thank-you. We made 374 sandwiches before running out of lunch meat, but we were able to donate the additional gloves, hand sanitizer, and bread to the Kitchen, along with some fresh produce.
At the end of the school day, we had a pep rally, and the students ran relay races where they have to put together sandwiches made from one of the play food kits. The senior class showed their class spirit by making the most sandwiches, and winning the relay race at the pep rally.
The project would not have been possible without support from Whole Foods-Reston, Wegmans-Sterling, and Giant Food-Sterling. Thank-you!

What I Learned...

If I had to sum up what I discovered while reading teacher blogs, and really, other blogs, is that blogging isn't always easy. Its hard to keep it fresh and interesting. If you do not post often, people won't read your blog. In fact, they make become actively annoyed if it isn't updated regularly.
I see the lack of updating often on other Red Cross chapter blogs, and when we started blogging for the chapter, I had to promise our Chapter Exec that we would have at least one post per week. In the beginning, it was a struggle... My partner and I have a list of "back up blogs" should there be a week when nothing is happening at the chapter. The topics are like our very first blog post which was an "interview" with the chapter and include ideas like favorite disaster books or movies, disaster foods, etc. The same is true of Twitter: I try very hard to tweet at least one update daily from the chapter's account.
Last week, we used mobile Read/Write Web tools to post about our trip to Kings Dominion. Every hour or so, I used TwitPic to send a picture taken with my cell phone's camera... the links to the photos were posted to Twitter & our Facebook status. I was truly surprised at the number of comments we received when I got home later. People really wanted to see this stuff!!!
I must admit that I'm having trouble coming up with a specific unit, mostly because I know that I can't blog with my students... I'm thinking about doing something with community service/service learning, maybe. I know I want to encourage writing, but beyond that? I don't know.

Summer Classes

This summer, I decided to take two on-line classes that explore using digital portfolios and Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) tools. Arguably, I'm already using Web 2.0 in my classroom, but I am hoping there are some positive suggestions on how I can incorporate the tools in a more structured fashion. The students enjoy doing it, but I think the quality of some of their projects leaves a bit to be desired. I'd also like to be able to use the tools without feeling like I'm being sneaky. Logically, I know that I'm not doing anything wrong as long as we don't publish anything, but still... It seems a shame that my students can post and get feedback.
I'm not talking SecondLife here, or Facebook, but blogging would be really nice. So many of my students need to work on writing, and they hate it. I might get more response to vocabulary activities or summaries or resumes or job research if the students could post to a blog and then get feedback.

I've also become heavily involved in my Red Cross chapter's social media efforts, and regularly blog about events the chapter has participated in. We have everything connected through Facebook, and I have another volunteer & friend helping with the tools. We also have a volunteer that goes to the scenes and takes photographs for us to include. I see this as a good way to show the citizens of our county what the chapter does, and how we provide services. I'd like to step it up a bit, too, though, add a little spice to some of the posts.

And, of course, coming up with a way to incorporate the digital portfolios. I really think these would be a fantastic way for my students to have input at their IEP meetings, but the goal of most of the meetings is to get done as soon as possible. I have some problems with that, although I do understand why getting them done & over is important. But I really bought into the self-determination thing when I was in grad school for transition planning.

Ideas are, as always, welcome!

Flat Stanley: Flying Back

Dear Friends,

I had to get up very early this morning (and it was tough because we were at Disney until 1:00 a.m.!) to catch our plane back to Baltimore. I almost got left behind at the hotel, but fortunately one of the teachers with the group found me. It would have been a very long walk from Orlando to Baltimore.

It was cold this morning in Florida. Our flight left Orlando very late, and so we missed our connection in Atlanta. We did not get back to Baltimore until after 4:00 p.m., so everybody was very tired by the time the Red Cross picked us up at BWI. We saw snow flurries on the way back (and its APRIL!).

When we made it back to the high school, the group had a present for the Red Cross staff that picked us up: a Mickey Mouse light saber. How cool! It even lights up in rainbow colors.

As soon as the teachers have all the pictures of me done, they are going to send me home. I can't wait!

Flat Stanley: Walt Disney World

Dear Friends:

Today, we went to Walt Disney World Resort. Walt Disney World has many different parks to visit. My group went to Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom. The other students also went to Typhoon Lagoon, which is a water park.

At Magic Kingdom, we went on a lot of rides. We went on Space Mountain, and the Tea Cup ride. We also took pictures of the fireworks and Cinderella's Castle at night.

At Animal Kingdom, we went on the safari and saw lots of animals, including a tiger, hippopotamus, and an ostrich.

We ate dinner at Hollywood Studios at the Vine restaurant, and then went on Terror of Terror, and shopped at the Star Wars store to get a Jedi Mickey light saber for a friend.

The students who went to Typhoon Lagoon went on the lazy river, lots of water slides, and the wave pool. They also snorkeled with sharks.

Flat Stanley: Fondue!

Dear Friends:

Tonight, I went to dinner with the students from Extra Mile. They went to a fondue restaurant. This is a restaurant where you cook your food at your table. They started with cheese fondue. You dip bread, apples or vegetables in the melted cheese. Or, I guess anything you might want, but the restaurant gave us bread, apples and vegetables. Then, we got hot broth to cook the main dish in. One girl at my table only eats vegetables, so I got to try eggplant, and spinach tortellini, along with steak and shrimp. The last course was chocolate fondue with marshmallows, brownies and cheesecake to dip in the chocolate.

After dinner, we took a group picture around the fountain, and headed for Downtown Disney to visit DisneyQuest and
do some shopping. We are going to Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios tomorrow. I am not going to Typhoon Lagoon with the group because I don't like water very much.

Flat Stanley: National Youth Institute

Dear Friends:

Today we spent all day in workshops learning about how the Red Cross does different activities. One of the highlights was the lunch session: there were 5 different groups from the same area as the Extra Mile club students who are hosting me. This was really amazing to see all of these teens working to make their communities better. They ate lunch together and got to know each other a little bit. There was also a slide show that the students from Extra Mile were in because they worked at the Presidential Inauguration!

After dinner, we had a birthday surprise because two of the students had birthdays. The local Red Cross chapter helped the Extra Mile group get a birthday cake. Then, we went to the dance. I must say, I looked stylin' in my neon bracelets!! Some of the students investigated the hotel swimming pool... but I don't like water very much!

---Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley: Flying to Florida

Dear Friends:

I flew to Florida today with some of the students from the Extra Mile Club. Half of the group went on a different flight, but the students I traveled with stopped in Cincinnati, Ohio before getting on another plane to go to Orlando. I'm waiting impatiently for the pictures, so I can post them here.

We had a storm delay, but finally got to Florida and found the other group. We had some problems with a car rental, and so didn't get to the hotel until really late. We had to miss our trip to NASA because of that. How sad: I've always wanted to go in a rocket!

Tonight we did conference activities, and then we went to Magic Kingdom at Disney World. Tomorrow, we are at the conference all day long.

---Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley: Arriving in Virginia

Dear friends,

Today I arrived in Sterling, Virginia. I'm being hosted by the Extra Mile Club from Park View High School. The students in the club do community service activities. Some of the activities that they have done this year include ringing the bell for the Salvation Army, working at the Presidential Inauguration, and making/sorting cards for veterans.
The club is going to Florida tomorrow to attend a Red Cross Conference for Youth. They are also going to go to Disney World, and a fondue restaurant.

---Flat Stanley

North Dakota

For those that do read this blog, you're aware that besides teaching, my other major activity is serving with Red Cross Disaster Services. I work locally, and when I'm available, nationally. The Red Cross is a grassroots, community-based charitable organization. The majority of the people who provide assistance during a disaster are volunteers, with other jobs, just like me. Please consider helping your local chapter right now: it may not seem like much, by an hour answering the phones is a huge deal!

With that said, I also wanted to share that I am so pleased to see that the Red Cross is automatically doing videos & pictures and making those available as they post news & updates about national disasters. There are so many people in this country who either cannot read English, or have difficulties with reading, that getting the information out in so many ways is important. Kudos to them for embracing new technology that makes getting the word out to ALL people.

Long Overdue

I haven't updated the blog as often as I should have in the last few months... I was feeling a bit guilty because we have been doing some interesting activities. One group completed all of their This I Believe essays, and have moved on to working on a recipe project. Students were instructed to find a recipe that meant something to their culture or their family. They were then required to complete a worksheet about the recipe, and a research worksheet that asked why the recipe was chosen. For the research worksheet, students also had to use websites to find the origins of at least 3 foods. The food origins was harder than it should have been; I will need to find better websites for the students to use for this portion if I want to do this activity again. I've included a link to the worksheets on my wiki. All of these projects are easier to do with the grant we received from Best Buy last year.

In another class, students are working on identifying deductions and earned income, fixed and flexible expenses. For years we did this activity using a postboard with velcro and "pieces" that attached. This year, I've updated the activity so it works on Classroom Suite, and I might also do a version that will work in ActivStudio on the Promethean Board. Of course, to do that part I really need to get the software installed on my laptop. Right now there are also worksheets to reinforce the concepts learned in the hands-on activity on my wiki.

The students in the club have been busy as well, and we had 9 students work the 2009 Inaugural, and 12 students completed training in order to serve. We have 8 students going to the National Youth Institute in Florida in a month, so we have been fund raising like mad. We were very fortunate to get some local corporate and individual sponsors that enabled us to get the students to the conference! Just last week one of our students spoke about what we have done this year, and what volunteering and being in the club has meant to her to the Disaster Action Team in our county. We showed an incredibly cheese video I made of their activities after her speech.

The Extra Mile Goes Farther

I probably couldn't have come up with a cheesier title for this entry if I'd tried. And the only excuse I can think of right now is that my brain is frozen... even if it is for a good reason.
The last 3 weekends have had the students in the club providing lots of service to our community. On Black Friday, 3 students and my co-sponsor gave up their post-Turkey Day shopping to ring bells for the Salvation Army in front of a local grocery store. On December 6th, some students helped at an elementary school's holiday party, and others went to Red Cross National Headquarters to sort cards for Holiday Mail For Heroes. Today, students spent another 4 hours ringing for the Salvation Army, even though the temperature today didn't get much above freezing, and had a wind chill of about 20 (degree F).
While all of this is going on, the students are also trying to raise funds so they can attend the National Youth Institute this year. A local Uno's Pizzeria is going to host 3 separate restaurant fund raisers for us. The first is this Thursday, December 18. If you live near Dulles Town Center, please consider helping the students in Extra Mile get more training, so they can keep helping just as they have been. You'll need to take this ticket with you to the restaurant:

Tar Heel Reader

Several weeks ago, I finally got around to asking for a password to create books in Tar Heel Reader. I received the little push I needed from the teachers that I've been writing grants with, because they thought it might be a good activity to add to the project for at least one of the grants we submitted. I created one book, and a student in one of the reading classes has been slowly working on a book of his own. I can't get the Flash version of the book to embed, but I'll try again later.
And here are some directions that I made with screen shots. The screen shots are small,because I didn't want to go put it on too many pieces of paper when printed.

My next plans are to do a book about the Red Cross, and to have the students make a few.

Fund Raising

For anybody who might be mostly interested in this for what we do in the classroom, you can probably skip this...
A local Bob Evans restaurant is hosting a fund raising night for the Red Cross chapter that I volunteer with on Monday 10/13 2008(Columbus Day). They will donate 20% of their proceeds between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. to anybody who presents the flyer. You can grab the flyer here, and print it out if you'd like to support our local chapter's disaster response efforts.

Extra Mile Updates

We are off to a huge start this year. In September, during the 2nd week of school, we raised money for the National 9/11 Memorial in NYC. We raised enough to allow the club to purchase a paver stone for the Memorial area, and are looking forward to getting the paperwork filled in for that purchase.

Last Saturday, we participated in the Loudoun County Red Cross' Ride for the Red. Ride for the Red is a motorcycle ride, and has become a very popular fund-raiser for many chapters. The students attending helped register more than 100 bikers, and the estimated total looks to be about $13,000! This is a huge amount, and very much needed for our chapter disaster response!


And we're heading straight for Make A Difference Day, starting this Friday night at our Homecoming. Can Man is coming (as you can see from the photo, he's actually already here!), and only our students can bring him. Our goal is to raise enough money for 6 $10 gift cards for family food baskets, and at least 3 baskets with food for the food bank by 10/28.

Making Brownies

For the last 2 Fridays, I have asked people to support the staff at the Red Cross call center by making a baked item. The first Friday, we had brownies made by the Gourmet Foods students, and last Friday, the students in my Functional Academic class baked. And of course, the teacher in me just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make this more of a learning experience. And so, I created a "How Many Different Kinds of Brownies" can you make activity. We've done some logic charts, and solved a few word problems based on the same concept.
The worksheets for the lesson are on the wiki. Scroll down to "Logic", because that seemed to fit best as a topic header.
One worksheet has the problem (You have 2 brownie mixes, 1 kind of icing, 2 kinds of add-ins... How many different kinds of brownies can you make?). The other set of worksheets is a data recording sheet, and a data collection mat with manipulatives. We cut out the manipulatives (pictures of the items they can use to make the brownies), and put them in the slots on the data chart, then recorded the information on the data sheet. It worked fairly well, and I think the concept has some possibilities.

Today

Today is 9/11. 7 years and four and a half hours ago, I was sitting at a computer in a small room in a school. Today, I am again sitting at a computer in a small room in a school. It is a different school, and I am definitely not the same person I was then.

Within hours of the disaster, I was in a Red Cross Shelter helping keep watch over children who had parents working in DC. Many of them were unable to get home at their normal hour because of the events. On 9/12, I was assigned to the Pentagon as an administrative assistant to one of the job directors. I did whatever needed doing: rolling socks in the Mass Care tents, hanging up cards, poems & pictures from students and families around the world, and getting food for those that couldn't leave their duty stations. I was there for just under 3 weeks; I taught every day, and worked at the Pentagon at night.

Today, I spoke to a small group of students at my current school about my experiences working at the Pentagon, and helped the students in the community service club I run sell red, white & blue braided strands in rememberance of those that not only lost their lives, but those that worked so hard to help everybody pick them up again.

And tonight, before I go home, I will put on the gray & white Disaster Services vest I wore at the Pentagon, and go answer phone calls from people evacuating because of Hurricane Ike. I am proud to be part of the American Red Cross for the last 22 years.

Just in time for a new year...

I really thought I had broken the pattern last year. You see, since 1997 (my second full year of teaching), there have been major disasters every 2 years that have impacted the attendance area of my school in some fashion. I don't remember what happened in 1997, but here's a list from 1999 forward: Hurricane Floyd, 9/11, Hurricane Isabel, and ending with Hurricane Katrina. And so, last August I started biting my nails. I was wondering if I would be teaching during the day, and doing Red Cross work in the evenings as I have done for most of these events. I waited... I just knew something was going to happen... And nothing did. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I went to the Innovative Teacher conference in Seattle, and came back. Still nothing. Woo hoo! The pattern was broken.

And then Gustav showed up. With his friend Hanna. I guess they think that since we didn't have anything last summer, we need a double dose this year.

School opens on Tuesday. Gustav is scheduled to arrive on Monday. Fortunately, I think I'm prepared for the first day.

I am also hoping and praying that Gustav gets bored and decides that New Orleans and that whole area isn't worth visiting. I hope the residents there have been evacuated safely... I've heard from one set of friends, who are safe and outside the area. One last wish, and then back to planning for the start of school: If you've been evacuated from the area, and not been able to reach family & loved ones, please make sure you register with Red Cross Safe & Well so your family and friends can find you.

Masters of Disaster---LIVE!

Hm... Okay, maybe that headline is a bit kitschy even for me, but I couldn't resist. This afternoon we had a tornado warning while we were at school. To help make that a little more understandable: A tornado WATCH means the conditions could possibly produce a tornado, and the National Weather Service is keeping an eye out. A tornado WARNING, however, means that a tornado has been spotted, either on the ground or in the sky near you.
We were puttering around in the classroom, packing things up for the summer. I have one student that enjoys looking at the weather, and often does this if he has the opportunity. He was doing that while I was looking up something for another student, so he leans over to me and points at the scrolling bar on the Weather Channel homepage. And I see it: bright red, scrolling slowly, TORNADO WARNING. He has seen it too, and wants to talk about it, but I needed to stop him so the other students wouldn't get scared. I simply said, "If it was for this area, we would be in the safe room, in the position that we practiced." He nodded, lost interest, and went forward. I can honestly say it wasn't more than 3 minutes later that one of our assistant principals came on the PA system and said, "All instruction will cease." I never thought I would hear those words out of the mouth of a principal! He requested that all students & staff report to their assigned safety locations, and then the school lost all power. Now, our school is a Red Cross shelter site, and has generators (I know this because, 3 years ago, before I ever knew I was teaching at this school, I did the shelter survey... it was one of the first things I did for the Loudoun Chapter!), so the hallways had lights as did some classrooms. We stayed in the room for about an hour, and ultimately dismissed all students by 4:15 p.m.
But, I was very proud of my students... they knew exactly what to do, and although they were scared and had some high-pitched voices going on, they did what they were told to do. I have to attribute at least SOME of the ability to what we've talked about in class with the MoD adaptations.

Masters of Disaster Adaptations

For those who heard about the MoD adaptations that were created by myself & the Loudoun County, Virginia Red Cross can look here for the Intellitools Classroom Suite files. The first module, Disaster Safety & Preparedness are available here.
Please note: The current Classroom Suite files are in Version 3. They are compatible for version 4, but once saved in version 4 they will no longer work in version 3. I hope to have time this summer to port the older activities to Version 4 over the summer as well as create the activities for the Fire Safety module.

If you are interested in print activities, and can provide proof that you have purchased a kit (or several kits) for either your chapter or schools & other groups in your area, I'm happy to email you the PDF files. If you would prefer to receive a CD of the print activities along with the IntelliTools activities, please contact me. There will likely be a minimal cost for the purchase of CDs and shipping.
I'm choosing to require proof of purchase for the paper activities in order to protect the copyright on the MoD kit. Groups that use the computer-based activities will typically have students that cannot access the print kit at all and so need more assistance to get this important information to their students & clients.

I would also like to thank the parents who previewed the activities for me before they were released, IntelliTools, Inc. for hosting the files in their activity exchange, and Mayer-Johnson, Inc. for allowing us to use the Boardmaker-PCS symbols in the activities without charge.