Joanie Clarkson
STN offers a podcast for teachers on best practices for teachers. Zach and Omar offer some great tips. I've highlighted a few of my favorite tips and tricks for teachers, especially first-time teachers, but the video does a much more thorough job. I highly recommend checking out the video below!
Papers Please
Don't forget to get permission slips and all forms filled out and bring them. You may also want to create a form for your students to sign that are rules they agree to uphold as representatives of your school.
Food Fuss
Have all the food plans prepared in advance. If ordering a pizza, call ahead, or else you might not get it in a timely manner. If doing vouchers or anything else, have it all in place and make sure you understand how it works. If you have chaperones, plan out how you want to utilize them during food breaks specifically. Also, make sure your students are actually eating. This is important for a couple of reasons, first, you don't want students fainting or getting sick because they aren't eating. Secondly, disordered eating is easy to hide at school, but during the convention, you may see something that you need to address, in an appropriate manner, of course.
Big Brother
Think about using Life360 or other tracking systems for the duration of the event. It is for their safety and yours. You can create a radius around the convention center and if a student leaves that radius, you will be notified. This keeps your students where they are supposed to be and protects them in the unlikely event of a worst-case scenario. It can also come in handy if a student loses their phone at the convention.
Color Coded
I come from a big family where I am one of 6 kids. Whenever we traveled or went to Disney World, we would all wear the same color on specific days. This helped my parents take quick headcounts and spot one of us who had wandered off (usually my older brother). This can be helpful when traveling with a group of students too. You can either have special shirts made for travel days or just require them to wear a specific color on travel day, like bright red or neon green.
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