Geography Night School Assembly at Newcastle
Newcastle Elementary in Bellevue invited me to perform for their “Where in the World?” geography night. PTSA leader Stina and her husband saw me perform my Magic Around the World show over the summer for one of the King County Libraries and knew it would be the perfect addition.
The Newcastle PTSA is wonderful example of a parent organization that really does it right. Last year I performed my Reading Magic show as part of their evening Literacy Night. This time the theme was geography. The evening opened with a pizza available for a very reasonable fee. Next, I performed my Magic Around the World show. Then, it was off to the “Geography Scavenger Hunt.”
Maps, puzzles, quiz stations, and hands-on activity stations were set up around the gym. Kids were very interested. What caught my eye most was the “Down-Under Map of the World.” In it, south is up and north is down. And why not? there is no “up and down” in real life; the world is a sphere. It was fascinating looking at the map with this perspective.
Stina, the PTSA coordinator for the evening, asked for my input on interesting facts that could be combined into their geography quiz. Fun facts from my show were answers to some of the quiz questions that were part of the scavenger hunt. Several times during my show kids would snatch up their pen or pencil and furiously write an answer down 🙂
- The Challenge was divided into grade levels
- Did I mention that the Newcastle PTSA is awesome?
- Poring over a map searching for anwers…
- Several maps written in different languages were available
- Something you don’t see everyday, the “Down-Under Map of the World”
- Students’ families came from all over.
- More geography fun…
- Prizes! (Thanks, Oriental Trading)
- About 250 people attended the Geography Night
Although my Magic Around the World program isn’t one of the three main educational/motivational shows I offer for schools, I can bring it out of “retirement” for special events like this. Details about the show are online at www.edumazement.com/world.html.