The State Farm Show is a family tradition that is still going strong after 98 years! My trip to the farm show began early Monday morning when Mohawk and Wilmington loaded the coach bus amidst a wintery mess. School was cancelled however, the FFA pushed forward for Harrisburg. There were around 25 students from each school and like national FFA convention it was a blast!
The kids were good, the main thing I learned from this experience is to keep them busy! Upon arrival we took the students to the hotel to change and then took them to the Mid-Winter Convention. Mohawk did not have any degree or jacket recipients but Wilmington did. Wilmington had degrees, awards, star candidates and jacket recipients. Our first night there the kids had the square dance competition. We had 2 teams one winning blue and the other red! The kids did a great job and had put a lot of effort into preparing!
However, upon returning to the hotel after the competition the kids were still full of energy! It was too late to take them anywhere else and we had to take them back to change. The lesson here is to have busy days! I believe that the best idea is to have them involved in as many activities as possible. The students need to have a direction and purpose to each trip. I think every student should be involved and have a worthy purpose for attending.
We did not have a demonstration team however Wilmington did and we watched that. They did great and I had a chance to stay to watch Blackhawks demo team too. I was very impressed with how well the students did with their demo's.
Following the demo's we took the kids to Outback Toys and then to Shady Maple Smorgasbord and ended the night at Bass Pro Shop. On Wednesday we took the students to Gettysburg, it was an extremely interesting and educational visit. The students seemed to both engage and enjoy the experience!
It was great to not only interact with the students but also with the parents who traveled to watch their kids compete. The parent communication was extremely beneficial! I was really happy to get to talk to the mother of one of my challenging boys. She tagged along just to keep an eye on him and I am happy that I was able to open up that communication on a positive tone!!
Mindy,
ReplyDeleteI don't know how I missed this one, but in any case thank you for sharing. I think it is so cool that you got to learn about the square dancing "experience" and that you got to mentor the students through the apparel process (from our previous discussions).
- Dr. Ewing