How to Pick a School Assembly or field trip, Part 4

How to Book a Good School Show, Part 4

Kid Power makes educational shows for kids.  We bring them to schools all over the country as well as to small regional theaters where the kids come from their schools to see us. 

So if we were booking an assembly performance or field trip for your school, we would try to find the following:

1. Something the students can't get in any other way. 

2. Professionalism. 

3. A wide range of subjects and styles.  

4. A program that reinforces and/or complements your school's curriculum. 

Let’s talk about #4: A program that reinforces and/or complements your school's curriculum. 

“Wow, those lesson plans look great!” - That’s complimenting your school’s curriculum.  Ha!  We are hilarious. 

No matter how good a school show is, it's not going to take the place of in-class learning. If your kids see a great show about the environment or about health and nutrition, they will probably retain some of it.  But where an assembly program or field trip really pays off is when it is combined with in-class instruction. Then there is this wonderful synergy where they hear something in class and then hear it in a totally new way (for example, in a musical number) in an assembly, and the combination of the two makes much more of the learning stick. 

So you've got two ways to go here, or a combination of two ways:  you can find a program that fits into a curriculum that you know most of the school is doing - say, a science unit on the environment - or, you can book the show with enough lead-time so that the teachers can put together some material on the subject prior to the performance. Either of them work, but both of them require some forethought and some communication with the teachers in your school. We know it's not easy, but an assembly is an investment and you want that investment to pay off. 

Just as a side note here, if you want to book a show about the environment during the week of Earth Day or if you want to book a show about MLK during the week of his birthday, remember that everybody else wants to do that, too. You better book early. You might also consider that learning about how to protect the Earth can happen anytime, it doesn't have to be the week of Earth Day. It could save you a lot of hassles. 

Next, we will look at age-range challenges. 

Picking a School Assembly or Field Trip, Part 3

How to Book a Good School Show, Part 3

Kid Power makes educational shows for kids.  We bring them to schools all over the country as well as to small regional theaters where the kids come from their schools to see us. 

So. What kind of show would we book if we were in charge of assemblies for your school?  We came up with 4 main criteria:

1. Something the students can't get in any other way. 

2. Professionalism. 

3. A wide range of subjects and styles.  

4. A program that reinforces and/or complements your school's curriculum. 

Let’s talk about #3 on the list: A wide range of subjects and styles.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  You want to have different kinds of shows over the 3 or 4 years it takes to turn over most of the population of kids at your school (if you have k-5 at your school, then most students are new every 4 years.)

Here’s something you might not have thought about, though: make sure that you have a range, not only of subjects, but of types of performances as well.  

Look at the shows your school has had in the last 2 years.  What subjects haven’t been covered?  Science?  Health?  Reading?  The Environment?  Social Studies?  Music?  Art?  

Then look at the types of performances.  Was there a play?  A 1-person presentation?  Story-telling?  A musical group?  A 2-person comedy performance?  A dance group?

If you’re new to booking outside performances and/or field trips for your school, it might seem like a lot of work to go back and find out what the school has had in the last 2 or 3 years.  But actually, it will save you time when you go to find a show.  For example, if you know you’re looking for a show about the physical sciences and you’d like it to be very active (maybe the last 3 assemblies were more stand-and-talk or sit-and-play), then it will be much easier for you to narrow down your choices.

Of course, if you find a company you like, you should definitely have them back.  Luckily, many of the groups you deal with will have several shows to choose from and, of course, your student population turns over every 4 or 5 years, depending on how many grades you have.  So you don’t have to completely start over every year. Just make sure you have a nice range of styles and subjects over the course of 3 or 4 years.

By the way, Kid Power has shows about both nutrition/health and about the Environment because those are two subjects about which we care very deeply. This works out well for you, because you can have us back the next year with a completely different subject. 

(We should probably mention here that in the near future we will have a 3rd show to add to our roster.)

Next post we will talk about the 4th criteria for booking a school show: reinforcing your school's curriculum.