Teacher Tips ~ Afternoon

In the afternoon you will either be arriving at Hidden Villa between 2:30 and 3:00 PM or finishing up your day program at this time. Students can store their overnight belongings in the hostel's screened-in porch at this time, however the rest of the hostel is closed until 4:00 PM. Your class may use the picnic tables and lawn area in front of the hostel before this time, but students are not allowed in the hostel buildings until after the orientation by the hostel manager. (In the case of rain, please confer with a Hidden Villa teacher to find shelter prior to the 4:00 PM opening of the Hostel.)

2:45-3:30 = Quiet Transition

• At the conclusion of the day program, make sure your students have used the poolhouse restroom before moving your class to the front lawns of the hostel. I like to sit my students on the hostel steps to be able to give them my instructions.
• Explain that they have the "opportunity" to continue their Hidden Villa notes. This may include going back to earlier notes the did not have time to finish during the day program or adding new notes. Remind students that they could record informational notes, diagrams, stories, poetic lines or personal reflections.
• As an incentive, I let my students know that they will receive their afternoon snack only when I have seen them concentrated for at least 5 minutes.
• Before you let your students get to work, clearly define the boundaries of where they can go to write. I recommend: the front and side lawns, the picnic table, the bench in the front garden and the hostel steps.
• When they are quietly writing, circulate to encourage and support your students' progress. Offer focused students a snack. I have found that baby carrots and plain pretzels are wonderful finger snacks that my hungry students happily devour.
• In the case that you are just arriving from school your students obviously can't take notes about the environmental education program. Instead, you may want your students to write about what they are looking forward to, what they can observe from their writing spots at the hostel, how they felt upon arriving at Hidden Villa, what they hope to learn during the field trip or what they had to do to get ready for the trip.

3:30 = Farm Chores

• Wrap up your note-taking activity a bit before 3:30 PM and gather your students on the Hostel steps. You may want to use this time to have students share a particularly enjoyable experience.
• At 3:30 PM the Hidden Villa staff will come to the hostel to give a very brief orientation to the farm chore activities.They will then guide each group through their assigned farm chore for about an hour.
• I highly recommend that you find out where each group is going and then rotate between them. Taking care of the farm animals is a new experience for most students and can be a very powerful moment for many. Being there to quietly witness their successes supports the development of my relationship with my students.
• If you have a digital camera, unobtrusively take pictures of your students. Later, back in the classroom, these photos can be helpful tools to illustrate essays, inspire poems and remind students of their ability to take on new challenges.