WHEATLAND – Back in March, second grade students from Libbey elementary, Glendo and Chugwater all amassed at Wheatland’s Old Junior High to meet with professionals on career day. Last week, each school finished what they started.
Nicole Deeney who was voted teacher of the year last year and Jessica Shepard, both second grade teachers at Libbey elementary came up with an idea for their second graders to find out about some of the careers that may be available and attractive to them even at their young age.
“Our fourth quarter reading unit is about jobs in our community,” Deeney said. “They were hoping today to get books in the classroom, but here they are viewing real life and getting to talk to the professionals that they can narrow it down to a job that they are most interested in. Over the next seven weeks they will do research and then our final project will be our students hosting the job fair with the community members invited.”
Overall there were approximately 60 children who participated in the initial career day. The idea was a collaboration, Shepard said at one of their PLC (professional learning communities) days.
Before the students began going around to see the various professionals and the tables that they had set up with props of their trades, they were given a list of five possible professionals to meet with and it gave the students directions and rotations to follow so that all 60 kids didn’t end up at one table all at one time.
For the final leg of this journey, the professionals were all gone and it was the students that now filled the tables with vision boards – explaining their chosen profession and setting up for the evening session where parents and guests could go around and learn about the professions through a child’s eyes.
The students
After the kids had the career fair with the community members coming in, they were able to hear the presentations from the professionals about what the jobs entailed. The students were then able to choose which profession they would like to learn more about and perhaps one day step into.
For the past seven weeks, the students did research and found out all about the job they were going to do when they grew up. They had to answer questions and write the answers on sheets that they put on vision boards which were on their specific table.
The parents that came in on presentation night each had five questions that they could ask the students to find out more about each profession.
They got together and practiced the fine art of presenting and were ready to tell all those who came to their “booth” why they wanted to become a part of their chosen profession and then they explained what the profession would consist of.
There were many careers represented from auto body repair to cooking and librarian to firefighter, and pretty much everything in between. Each presenter would give a brief sketch of what their craft entailed.
It was a normal career fair, but the professionals for a day, and perhaps for a lifetime, were the students.
