Homemade Arcade and the Global Cardboard Challenge at TZ

[Another first essay of the year, this one from the Employment Skills 4Life Success class.]

Tiospa Zina is doing a project. The Homemade Arcade will be a fun activity for K-12. It starts September 4, 2017. The actual event is on October 6, 2017. We are doing this because we are joining the world for the Global Cardboard Challenge event.

The Global Cardboard Challenge event was named after Caine. Caine is a nine year old kid from California who made arcade games out of cardboard boxes and recycled material. A man made a video about Caine and posted it on YouTube and it went viral. Then people started coming and donating to Caine’s college fund.

TZ kids in K-12 can participate using only recycled things and cardboard scraps. The world is doing the Global Cardboard Challenge, too. We will participate in the Global Cardboard Challenge too. We are doing this because we are joining a global event. Global means around the whole world.

We are making our homemade arcade games out of cardboard. Our class proposed skee ball, pinball or whack-a-mole as our suggestions for games.

We will be holding these fun activities inside by the Medicine Wheel. Our class will be making games and also helping to run the event.

Help Wanted

Knowing how to get a job is a key life skill.  This week, the Employment Skills 4Life Success class did a project that required using the Sota and the Sisseton Courier newspapers to find job ads for jobs that could fit us. 

Each student searched the newspaper and found an ad. Then, they studied it and found out where the job was located, what experience or training they'd need, and if they'd earn minimum wage or more.

For some jobs, a reference was required. For others, the applicant needed a certain level of education. One ad explained that you'd need a criminal background check. 

We talked about all these new terms and added them to our "Word Wall" in red, the color for this class. Some of the words were:

wage, required, education, GED, reference, dependable, OT (over time), skill, consistently, responsibility, opportunity, minimum wage, and application.

After listing the new words on the Word Wall, we had to use them in sentences. We also had to add them to our Glossary in our Passport to Employment notebook.

We arranged our posters in a display in the classroom. 

Gratefully, we have tall students who can reach the top of the walls!

Our First Essay for This Year

Editor's Note: The students in the Communication 4Life Success course are developing their writing skills. First, they are using "spider maps" to create a visual outline of each paragraph. Then, they use that to compose basic sentences. After that, they edit the sentences to make them stronger. The following essay was done this week as a guided group process, with everyone contributing spiders, sentences, and editing ideas. This is a fantastic first essay! Readers can look forward to seeing even better (and longer) essays in the months ahead.

Learning 4Life Success

There are four important things we are learning in the Learning 4Life Success courses.

First, we are learning about life skills. This class is for Juniors and Seniors in high school to help them for their adult life. We will use the things we learn in this class after graduation, in our adult life. These skills will be applied to your adult life.

Second, we are learning about career preparation. We want to learn how to get a good job.We are going to discover what we are good at. We will find out what jobs we would like to apply for. We will discover what school is the best for where we want to get job training.  We will need to find out how much money we will earn in different jobs.

Third, we are learning about college skills. During our senior and junior year of high school, we are focusing on college skills for when we graduate. For example, we will practice our study skills, typing skills, and writing skills. We will also use our Handbook for Adulthood. We will learn expectations and how to remember certain important things for class or for yourself.

Lastly, in our class we will learn independent living skills. We will use our prior knowledge about living independently. This is important because it will teach us how we can live by ourselves without the need for parental supervision when we leave our parents’ or guardian’s home. We will learn how to tend to ourselves as an adult.

In conclusion, this course will teach us the basics for adulthood. In our opinion, we would like to invite you to join our class.

Authors of this First Essay

A Busy First Week- and it's only WEDNESDAY!

Good weather for outdoor academics.
Sheldon participates in an
activity for team building.

 The first week of school is always a mix. You get to see friends and teachers. You have to get up earlier than all summer. You get stressed figuring out your new schedule. You have to learn all the rules of your new classes.

We have a lot of rules in our class. That is good and bad. It's good because we know what to do. It's bad because sometimes we forget to be "on-time, on-task, on-target" and then we get a reminder.

If we still do not choose to learn, we might get asked to go out in the hall to explain to Sister Patrice what the problem is, and how we will fix the problem. If that does not help us choose to be on-task, then she will give us a clear warning. After that, it is time for a letter home or a phone call home. 

"It's all about being a problem-solver. That's what adults do- they solve problems. We will work together to find a good solution so that the student can be back in class learning, on-time, on-task, and on-target," explains Sister Patrice

In the afternoon, students take "Workforce Math," Workforce
Literacy, " and "Employment Skills 4Life Success"

We got into working right away this first week. Here you can see us preparing our "Passport to Employment." That will be the book we write this year. It will include tips, ideas, and plans for success when we graduate and have a job.

Brandon works on his
"Handbook for Adulthood"

Students in the morning classes (Communication 4Life Success, Math & Money 4Life Success, and Career Skills 4Life Success) will write a "Handbook for Adult Life" as their manual for life after high school.

Itancan prepares his "Passport to
Work."

This week we also received our own Google Apps login and began to work on our first project, a slide show. We also started working on "Moby Math," a challenging computer program that will help us with learning and practicing math skills.

The Seventh Hour class, all sophomores, is called Math Skillz 4Life Success. We are already reviewing old skills and learning new math skills. 

A bright start

Today was our first day of the new school year.

Although it rained, so we couldn't watch the "Great (Annular) Eclipse of 2017" outside, our morning Learning 4Life Success class learned a lot about eclipses.

• We learned why it was important to view the actual eclipse through special eclipse glasses. (We even tried them on!)

Tre tries the Eclipse glasses and discovers
no light!

• We examined the "path of totality" for upcoming total solar eclipses. They are considered "rare" because you can only see them if you are in the path of the shadow of the moon.

You can only see the total eclipse from within the "path of totality."
You have to be in the "right place at the right time."

• We calculated what our age will be at the next total solar eclipse in the USA in 2024. Wonder where we will be??
• We even created our own solar eclipse, with each of us standing in for the main "actors"- Tre served as the sun, Maggie as the Earth, and Brandon, orbiting the Earth, sent his shadow onto the surface of the Earth. Although our classroom lighting was less than ideal, we imagined both the "umbra" and the "penumbra." 
• Our Word Wall was launched with our new words from the eclipse experience! Yay! (If you are wondering, the word "stereotype" came from our later discussion that morning, not from our eclipse learning.)

• Here's the moment of totality (the moment when the shadow of the moon covers a point at earth so that it appears that the sun is "covered up.") As you can see, we livestreamed it from Nebraska.

We learned that the "corona" (comes from the root word for "crown")
is the light peeking out from behind the moon.

New and Improved!

During the summer, we've grown and expanded our Learning 4Life Success program so we can serve up to twenty-two high school students per semester in this new school year.

Why upgrade?

Our students last year were clear: 

• although they had to work hard, they learned a lot,
• many felt they learned more in the Communications for Life Success/Technology for Life Success course in one year than they'd learned in the rest of their high school combined!
• Every student made gains, and some made two to three year gains, on their standardized testing, even in subjects where they had not specifically focused,
• Each student not only completed, but achieved excellent scores on their "Exit Presentation," a final performance assessment that included public speaking, presenting in Dakota, and self-advocacy.

Last year was a "pilot program" that let us experiment to see what types of things worked well. This year, we will offer new courses (so that students from last year can continue, but learn new things).

In the morning, we will have a block scheduled class (period 3,4, and 5) for up to eight Juniors and Seniors. 

• Communication 4Life Success (earns English credit)
• Math and Money (earns Math or Personal Finance credit)
• Career Skills 4Life Success (earns CTE credit)

7th Hour, up to six freshmen and sophomores will take a unique, hands-on math course called "Math Skillz 4Life Success." This small-group learning experience allows students who struggle to succeed in larger classes . The focus is on math you can use, and many will go on to succeed in other high school math courses, such as algebra.

In the afternoon, we will have a second block-scheduled class (period 8,9, and 10) for a different group of up to eight Juniors and Seniors.

• Workforce Literacy 4Life Success (English)
• Workforce Math 4Life Success (Math or Personal Finance credit)
• Employment Skills 4Life Success (CTE credit)

As you can imagine, this class will be focused on developing adult skills for success in a workforce setting. We'll explore career and job possibilities, plus the writing, reading, technology, and math skills necessary for adult work success. 

Each course offers different content, so students can take whichever best fits their personal goals for life after high school.

Students in these courses are students of high potential who also have IEPs or 504 Plans. They must have a teacher recommendation, plus an interview and application. The interview and application are done during our first week of school.

During the year, this website will be a great place to visit to see what we're learning and doing. Please feel free to scroll down to peek at last year's successful and engaging learning. Then, come back often for more.