Leadership Town

I realize I owe many a post on how we got to where we are, but currently there is a much more pressing issue to report...

We are 5 days from hosting our first Leadership Day. FIVE DAYS! The entire staff of teachers and administrators are pretty nervous, even the kids are nervous. We have over 75 guests attending, families, educators, principals from local elementary schools even a couple of people from FranklinCovey Education. I think it is fear of the unknown. We know the kids are ready. They have practiced and prepared and taken all the steps to get ready. But opening our doors, for the first time, to show the community what we have been up to these last 2 years is a very scary thing. We are vulnerable and open for criticism. Of course, we will all be fine. Each day things come together a little more and everyone gets a little more confidence. These feelings come every time we try something new.

Of course, being the group of overachieving educators we are, we thought it would be an extremely intelligent idea to plan our first ever Leadership Town the week before, too. 

Leadership Town is a spin off of an idea called Busy Town. One of our teachers took a class on Busy Town, an economics project, at the NAEYC Conference in Atlanta, GA last year. She fell in love and upon return, convinced me and our director that this was something we HAD to do. 

We had no idea what we were doing but planned and organized as much as we could (all the while getting ready for our first ever Leadership Day) and had our first every Leadership Town.

Here's how it works.

Each classroom chose some kind of store or shop you would find in a community. We had an art gallery, post office, grocery store, garden center, movie theater, candy store and a cafe. Because of all of the leadership language taking over our school and culture we decided to rename all of our shops with a leadership language tie-in. [Classroom ages are September ages; children did a variety of activities in their classroom to earn money to spend during Leadership Town previous to beginning their town tours.]

Infant Room (ages 0-16months) - D'Win-Win Art Gallery. Their gallery consisted of art tickets for purchase and the entire hallway outside of their hallway was lined with art made by the Infants at eye level to a preschooler. The kids were able to use their earned money to purchase art gallery tickets to view the art.

Red Room (16months-2 years) - The Win-Win Post Office. The post office had a variety of envelopes, stickers and writing utensils where the kids could write letters to the troops (a community service project being sponsored by another class.) There was even a large mailbox for the kids to "mail" their letters.

Orange/Yellow Room (2-3 years) - The Leadership Grocery. The grocery had a variety of grocery bags for shopping as well as tons of empty boxes and bottles to purchase. These were donated by our families and the kids were able to shop for their weekly groceries.

Green Room (3-3.5 years) - The Sharpen Your Saw Flower Shop. The flower shop had various pots, seeds and soil to plant your own seeds to grow in your classrooms. They were able to put their money together to buy supplies for their classrooms.

Blue Room (3.5-4 years) - The Synergy Cinema. The movie theater was a huge hit. They had a place to purchase your tickets, complete with cash register, a ticket taker to take your ticket and direct your to refreshments and a refreshment table complete with popcorn, gold fish and juice. The projector was set up with rows of chairs for the kids to watch various short stories like The Little Red Hen.

Purple Room (4-4.5 years) - The Synergy Sweet Shop. The candy store had bags of oreos, ring pops and varies other sweets for purchase. The also had a cash register and even took credit cards (old gift cards donated) for larger purchases.

Gold Room (4.5-5 years) - The Cup 'o Covey Cafe. The cafe had waiters and waitresses with clipboards to take your order (Juice or Water, Animal Cookies or Veggie Straws). The tables were adorned with table clothes and centerpieces and their was even a person for you to pay for your meal at the end.

The classrooms spent the better part of an hour taking turns working at their shop and enjoying the other shops around Leadership Town. As an observer, the most amazing thing was how little teacher direction was happening. The kids were in charge of the shop they built, the shop they worked for, the shop that they cared about. It was amazing to watch them interact with one another regardless of their age or developmental differences and watch the leadership come alive.

As an administrator, I saw the true meaning of the teacher as the facilitator, reminding the students to greet their guests or offer a refreshment before the movie but never, ever telling them what to do.

We were a little crazy to do a project like this right before Leadership Day, but watching our leaders run their town reminded us that they are ready for Leadership Day. They have done the work and stood up to the challenge and are ready to show their stuff and I am so excited to watch!