Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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How Clue and The 4C’s Inspire Connection, Community and Creativity
How DO board games inspire Connection, Community, and Creativity, you ask? Last week, eight middle school girls were consumed with the details related to who murdered Mr. Boddy. This wasn’t the latest episode of a crime drama, and thankfully wasn’t something in the news, but instead was the culminating event wrapping up their Secret Agent badge-an intense game of Clue. I’m lucky enough to be the troop leader for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, an out-of-school time activity that she and mo...Read More
Not Your Mother’s Meeting (PT 2)
Welcome back to Part 2 of Not Your Mother’s Meeting! If you missed Part 1, click here to catch up! Breakfast Club Blogger @jillgordon provides excellent inclusionary meeting ideas in order to create more participation and engagement for your staff. Enjoy! Make the Meeting Participatory Gain greater participation by posing three questions or next steps to the meeting participants. For small group discussions, try using small dry erase boards to generate ideas and questions. They are ext...Read More
A Relevant Repost! Tilling the Soil: Staff Turnover
Corn as high as an elephant’s eye? Why stop there? How is farming equivalent to staff turnover? The seeds are bought. The seller promised a yield surpassing anything ever seen before. Acre upon acre of corn growing much, much higher than an elephant’s eye. The new tractor had been purchased. Much better than the old tractor. And just for show, you bought new work gloves and some new boots. The rains had been good, the weather fair for growing. The table was set for record yields and...Read More
Not Your Mother’s Meeting: 4 Ways to Creating Meaningful Meetings (PT 1)
Do you ever go to a meeting and wonder why you came? Do your meetings lack the fun and energy that keep people engaged and ready to participate? Personally, I think meetings should be limited to an hour max (whenever possible). This year, I’ve had the pleasure of organizing and moderating our 2017 Youth Philanthropy Webinar Series, a four-part series designed to support next-gen leadership and giving opportunities through real-world examples and resources from experts all over the country. Th...Read More
BOOST 2018 Workshop RFPs due 10/31
BOOST requests workshop proposals that support and highlight trends, innovative research, and promising practices to support quality out-of-school time programs. The deadline to submit a workshop proposal for BOOST 2018 is Tuesday, October 31, at 5 pm PST. Any proposals submitted after this date will go on a waiting list. To submit a proposal, visit the BOOST Conference website and click on the blue button to start the application process. Every year the BOOST Conference offers a variety of work...Read More
4 Amazing Tips To Making Communities Healthier Through STEAM and Sports
If you are a regular BOOST Breakfast Club reader, you may have read my summer article, STEM and Wellness: Colliding Galaxies. The article explores a partnership sparked by a chance meeting at the 2017 BOOST Conference between the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and the National Girls Collaborative Project. Three months later and our educational brief, STEM and Wellness: A Powerful Equation for Equity, is now live! Here is the heart of the brief: Intentionally blending STEM/STEAM and wellness...Read More
The Role and Vision of a CEO from a CEO
I have a lot of breakfast meetings these days, the hardest kinds of meetings. Not the kind where I get excited about pitching a program to a new client or get to brainstorm curriculum and advocate for youth. Those meetings I love. No, lately my days are filled with meetings wherein I talk—or, more often, listen– to people expressing real fear and vulnerability about their present and future. Not just people: my staff. In February 2017, I gave speech to my staff on “the state of Arc&#...Read More
Cybersecurity Taking Root in Afterschool
The best and worst of online times. What do you know about Cybersecurity? The Internet, as we all know, offers all the information you could ever want to find, all the time, from anywhere. Unfortunately, “all the information” includes a lot of revealing, specific data about ourselves, our property, and things we care about that we might not want or even understand to be available. Staying protected while connected has become a fundamental challenge of citizenship, as the reach of “being online” ...Read More
A Jewel of a Project: Cassini Mission at Saturn
In the blackness of space, a “jewel” shines in the distant Sun, encircling it once every 29 ½ years. The planet Saturn’s brilliant rings dazzle casual observers and serious scientists alike, reflecting the Sun’s light as though it was a gem. But now, Saturn has a gift from Earth. After 13 years and 293 orbits around Saturn, on September 15, 2017, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft dove into the planet’s atmosphere, losing all contact. The robotic spacecraft left Earth in 1997, bound for the ringed ...Read More
Why Schools Should Inspire Students to Do What They Do Best
This is the fourth article in a four-part series. Read the first, second and third articles. Many talented teachers and coaches have a knack for spotting and fostering innate talent in others. They are driven to maximize the potential of every student and athlete who they serve. My daughter Miriam graduated from high school this year, and she was blessed to have such a coach. Four years ago, Miriam was a gymnast who competed successfully at her first regional gymnastics meet. A few weeks later, ...Read More
How to Receive Funding Dollars to Feed Kids on School Holidays & Weekends!
Did you know that funding is available to feed kids on school holidays and weekends? Most program providers know that the Afterschool Meal and Snack Program, through the Child and Adult Care Food Program, will reimburse schools, local government agencies, and private nonprofit organizations for serving meals and snacks to kids in programs after school. Few, however, know that they could receive the same funding to feed kids on school holidays and weekends. The Afterschool Meal and Snack Program ...Read More