8/1 Final Project Creation

 

One of the museum's activity plans
This is the final week of my internship class, but I have one more week before the summer camp is finished for the year. This blogpost will focus on my plan for my final project. 

The plan for this project is to create three weeks of activities and schedules for those weeks. Talking with the curriculum coordinator, I learned a few tips about how to create a schedule and activity plan for a summer camp. The first thing I learned was that a week needs at least 8 activities assuming a field trip and a guest speaker is scheduled for the week. When creating an activity, you need to keep a couple of things in mind. 

Unlike a traditional lesson plan, the activities for the summer camp need to be accessible to all of the ages present. This summer had kids ranging from 5 to 13 years old although the camp advertises for 6 to 11 year old. As a result, the lesson plan sees multiple changes and options for creativity on the part of the teacher. The learning goals are kept pretty simple due to the wide age range being taught the same lesson. The background information serves as a simple summary the teachers can use to shape their lessons towards certain age groups. The supply list just gives the needed items for the craft. The classroom facilitation helps guide the teacher on what parts of the lesson to emphasis and how to carry out the activity.

When creating the schedule for the week, the activities get divided into either 3 groups or 2 groups depending on the day or needs of the activity. The divisions at the museum are based on the age group ranges either into thirds or in half. The teachers are not assigned to specific groups or activities either. The teachers decide amongst themselves which teacher will work on each activity. This makes creating a schedule pretty easy from a staffing front. When a guest speaker is visiting the museum, one of the activities is replaced by the speaker and all of the children attend it. Field trip days are pretty easy on the scheduling front as the whole day gets taken up by the field trip. While field trips and guest speakers feature a lot of communication beforehand, I will not be illustrating this in my project. An interesting note I learned was that being a public institution comes with the unexpected downside of making guest speakers harder to coordinate. Due to the needs of insurance coverage, guest speakers feature an additional hurdle before they can come and visit.

I hope to create an engaging three week schedule that may even get used by the museum one day with the lessons I have learned creating this project.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 16th Blog Post: Introduction

 Hello, I am John Hill and I am a graduate student at the University of Central Florida. I currently work at the Universal Orlando Resort. I moved to Florida very recently in 2022. Before then I lived in Georgia since 2008 and I was born back in 2000 in NC. My hobbies include gaming, history, and nature. My current research interests involve a focus on cultural history in the 20th century in the United States. I have a major interest in the creation of amusement parks, wildlife reserves, and advancements in home entertainment. Currently, I am aiming to make my thesis involve the rise of the video game industry in the late 20th century or building upon a recent digital project I made as part of a spatial history class. This second project covers the "fall" of the video game arcade. Instead of failing, arcades changed how they appear and manage their businesses, such as entertainment centers, kid zones, or restaurant hybrids.  As for what I want to get out of this internship, I...
Read more

May 23th Internship Blog: Setting Up an Internship

While my internship begins on June 2nd, I do have something to discuss for this week's post. For this post, I will cover the process it has taken to reach this point in my internship. This journey began back in February when I applied for two internship positions. One position was for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and the other was for the Orange County Regional History Center (OCRHC). After waiting for a couple weeks, I figured that I did not get the position at either place. Soon after I thought that two emails appeared in my inbox. The Smithsonian told me that I did not get the position. Meanwhile, the OCRHC asked me to meet over Zoom for an interview. I met for a brief interview over Zoom a week later, and after that I received an offer to join their team as a Summer Educator. It turned out that my job experience at the Universal Orlando Resort translated well to the potential challenges of being a Summer Educator. An obvious requirement involves being able...
Read more

7/11 Week 7: Catch Up Post and Project Planning

Image
Helmeted Guineafowl at Bill Frederick Park Given the 4th of July break, I'll condense the past two weeks into one blog post. Both of these past weeks had field trips, but I really just served as a chaperone for them. One field trip saw us go to Bill Frederick Park while another had the Florida Film Academy visit the History Center. Both of these field trips had educators from the park and the academy handle the lessons, so we simply watched the kids and made sure they behaved.  Animal Bones (Bear and Cow Skull along with Deer Antler) The class activities for these past two were somewhat similar to previous weeks if you have been reading the blogposts. Both weeks had the kids visit one of the galleries at the history center.  One week had them explore the pioneer gallery and another had them handling some animal bones as a part of an animal focused week. I spent the animal week helping the kids measure their punching power with a sparring tool and then escorting them to Frederi...
Read more