OT: Enrichment course ideas needed

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seeking_guns

Cathlete
Hi everyone!
I'm a middle school language arts teacher who's looking for some fresh ideas for an enrichment course to propose for next year.

What is enrichment? During one class period per day, we teach an elective enrichment course - no grades, it's just for fun.

What do you think might appeal to middle schoolers?

To give you an idea of some of the existing courses, they include:

Beginner's Yoga
American Civil War Through Videos
Chess
Great Books
Girls Matter
Have it Your Way (healthy food & exercise choices)
History of Music
Intro to Psych
Law & Debate
Logic
Poetry Reading & Writing
Scrapbooking
Taking Center Stage (acting)
Writer's Craft

TIA for any suggestions!
Cathy :)
 
Any kind of a sports class and how to interpret and anaylse the scores will be popular and any kind of photography. What about cooking? Baseball? Basketball? Golf? Skate Boarding? Ask the PE teacher for suggestions.Is there a current card game like Magic?Any specific computer courses?
 
I know that Knitting is pretty popular now, you could offer a small learning project (taking off of Scrapbooking theme).

Computer stuff (DH would cringe if he saw me put it that way). I don't mean how to run a computer and play on the internet, but how to build a computer of your own from scratch. According to DH, it's pretty easy.

I like the cooking idea, as well as the photograph!
 
This may be for an older crowd but you can never be too young to learn about money. At this age, it seems there is always some new high-priced gadget out there, but maybe they might be more conscience spenders if they understand about stocks, bonds, savings accounts, college funds, etc. I'm sure it can be discussed in a fun way. Just a thought.
 
I like the money idea. I think young adults need to be taught how to balance and check book and even more importantly, use CREDIT. When our children are seniors in high school we get them a credit card under our name and teach them the proper way to use it. People think we are nuts, but out two older kids know how to use the card understand that it is not "free" money. How you can make it fun I don't know, but what an invaluable concept to have.

Cheryl
 
OK, I am also a middle school teacher. I ran some of your ideas by my first-period class during the few extra minutes we have for our breakfast program. They LOVED the money class idea (they wanted especially to learn about stocks and the basics of starting a business), weren't too excited about the healthy choices one, but also loved the cooking class (you could sneak healthy choices into that one).

One of our teachers here teaches a popular "Middle School Survival Skills" class. She teaches a popourri of skills in there. Cooking and healty meal planning is one of them. For this portion, she requires the students to plan and prepare dinner for their families at home one night. She also teaches babysitting skills, including CPR and first aid certification (she is red-cross certified to teach these skills), how to fix a flat bicycle tire, tie-dye, crochet and knitting, etc...

There is also a popular movie-making class. Students film and edit their own short films.
 
random thoughts:
gaming/computer programming
I would recommend making the history of music more specific to a genre (i.e. hip hop, metal, alternative, etc)
teen lit book group
 
Hi Cathy,

I run a Life Enrichment program at a community college and we have a summer camp for kids ages 5-13. Here's some of what we ran last year for the older kids:

Around the World in 5 Days (Investigated 5 different cultures in different parts of the world by listening to their music, tasting their food, learning some of their language and trying some of their clothes)
Fun with Spanish
Tennis
Tech Effects - Pulleys and Levers
Watercolor Basics with a Pinch of Salt
Advertising & Invention Convention
Stampin' & Scrappin'
Mud-Saic Garden Stepping Stones
Tech Effects - Cars & Motors
Fashion Divas
Crime Solvers
Manners & Etiquette & Home Alone
Beat Your Mom & Dad at Chess

We have LOTS of really fun classes for the little kids - super messy classes. :) I don't know if the above are of any help, but hopefully they will help to give you some ideas. I look for teachers and then make the teachers give us ideas. I'm terrible with ideas. :p I did try to run one that a parent told me would do great on money, writing checks, etc. and no kids signed up. :(

Good luck!

Suz

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." - Anatole France

http://www.picturetrail.com/dogs2birds
 
Thanks so much for the ideas, ladies! These were all so helpful.

The way it works is that whatever I propose, *I* have to teach, so I had to chuckle at the prospect of me breaking my neck on a skateboard with these kids or attempting to knit. *lol* I’m sure both would be extremely popular with our students. But generally, our enrichment class should be something we have a little expertise in, so I’d have to defer to someone else on those. :) I really liked the photography, real world money, and cooking ideas. Unfortunately, we don’t have a cooking classroom…but maybe it’s better, or I’d be doing a lot of eating! ha ha

The existing courses are taught by others -- I’m not sure how they approach History through Music. It does sound interesting, though.

I wound up proposing a “Games to Boost the Brain” class. I hope it gets approved. The idea would be to have kids working on things like crosswords, Jumbles, logic puzzles, brain teasers, and one-minute mysteries and also play board games such as Scrabble, Taboo, Scattergories, etc. Since research suggests that consistent mental exercise helps improve memory & mental processing speed and develops linguistic and reasoning skills, I thought it would be a good way for them to keep the brains sharp but still have fun.

Once again, thank you for all your great ideas! I am going to keep a master list of them for future reference.

Cathy :)
 
Oh, Cathy, I think they will love that Games class! We have a similar elective here called "Math Fun" and it is a real favorite. Great idea!!
 
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