18LindsayL – CA Work Experience Program

Games and Goodbyes

My last day at my work experience program was an emotional one. I spent some time with Mr. Rothrock doing a recap of what I accomplished these past two weeks. In a brief overview, I assisted with the leading of several camp activities, as well as planned curriculum and conducted my own activity without the assistance of the other councilors. I learned how to budget, and learned how to calculate how much income it takes to break even with the costs of rent, materials and employee pay. We also reviewed the 7 total marketing things I made for the company, including ads and business cards. I provided him with a list of people who replied yes upon my questioning about whether or not we could display advertisements on their location. I handed out gifts to the employees and then Mr. Rothrock had to leave to continue with the preparations for the opening of the second Cra – Z – Brain location.

In the afternoon, I led a camp game. Considering it was the last day of camp and most of the campers track back in on Friday, they were very well behaved. After the game, we cleaned up the camp and set up for next week, and I said my final goodbyes. I really enjoyed my experience and am so glad I had the opportunity to experience something like this!

Teaching!!

Today was a very big day for me in my work experience program. In the morning, Mr. Rothrock was back, so I sat and talked with him about the work I did yesterday. Later in the morning, he gave me another assignment of creating a page sized advertisement for a magazine that goes out to every public elementary school kid in Wake County. After that, I set up for the session I was leading individually in the afternoon.

The activity I chose to lead was a modification of a lab I did during my junior year in advanced Environmental Science class. I created an Oil Spill by pouring a thin film of oil on some water in a tin container. I then instructed the campers to create a contraption to clean up the oil spill. Considering most of the kids are elementary school aged, it went surprisingly well. There were some very creative ideas and structures for the contraptions, which was awesome. The kids responded well to my activity and were very engaged.

Speaking with Sylvan

Today was a very busy day at Cra – Z – Brain. Mr. Rothrock hurt his back, and was unable to come in, so I worked with the other full time employee at the Cra – Z – Brain, Joe. Joe used to be a special education teacher before working at Cra – Z – Brain. He is very funny, and extremely talented at keeping all kids involved and under control, while still maintaining a healthy level of discipline.

In the morning, I worked more on advertisements, and got in contact with a local tutoring and education company. Sylvan Learning is a company that works closely with students kindergarten through high school age to help assist with keeping grades up and standardized test prep. It can also be useful for kids who struggle in a specific subject or who have fallen behind in school. The purpose of reaching out to Sylvan was to create some sort of conjoined referral, membership or even discount to promote both companies and hopefully expose the clients to the other company. I called, and was asked to contact the manager via email. Due to Mr. Rothrock’s absence, I wrote an email, but did not send it. This is because this project would likely go beyond my internship, and I wanted his permission and approval before making any long term decisions for the company.

In the afternoon, I helped assist Joe in teaching the post-lunch class. Tomorrow I will be responsible for teaching the kids, not assisting.

Emails, Business Cards and Instagram

Today was a very calm day at camp. I spent a majority of the day working on more advertising tactics, as well as getting to know the new campers. Mr. Rothrock talked to me about mass advertising via email, and how to maximize your results by not sending out too many emails. I created an email advertisement to sell camps through referral. The task I was assigned was to create an email to send to current customers that advertises 50% for both parties if they refer a new customer.

After creating this, I also created a business card and touched up the poster I created on Friday. Tomorrow I will show Mr. Rothrock the things I created.

I also took over the Cra – Z – Brain social media. I posted pictures with comments, rather than leaving them commentless like they were before. I also added more hashtags and today we gained close to 5 followers and almost doubled the amount of likes on each post.

Soliciting, Soliciting, Soliciting!

Today I spent a majority of my time at camp contacting places to hang the poster I created in the morning. In my morning meeting with Mr. Rothrock, we discussed fixed vs. variable costs. We talked about how discounts work, and what the expense of giving away a free camp is. We also talked about the most effective way to market discounts, which eventually led me to creating a poster as a marketing attempt. I created a poster, which I am quite proud of!

The poster I created to advertise for Cra – Z – Brain

Mr. Rothrock had to leave before I finished the poster, because he is working on opening the Holly Springs campus before June 18th. Even though he did not get to see the poster, I look forward to showing him on Monday! After creating the poster, I contacted local community environments to hang my creation! This was a very eye opening experience for me. First of all, I cannot believe it is so problematic to hang a poster in some of the places I called! I contacted 11 libraries in total, only receiving permission to hang the poster in three of them. The three I received permission to hang posters in were regional libraries. The other libraries that I contacted were small local libraries, and they said they were not comfortable promoting an organization that was not a non-profit organization. I then contacted approximately a dozen local private elementary schools with hopes of displaying the posters on campus. I only heard back positive results from 3 schools, but left voicemails for 4 others, which I hope to hear back from on Monday. After my morning of contacting schools, libraries and local coffee shops with community boards, I headed back into the classroom to say goodbye to the campers. Today is Friday, which means this camp session is over.

My campers and I on their last day! Even though the age range is 7 – 12, that doesn’t stop most of them from being as tall as me!

Though I’ll miss them dearly, I look forward to next week and the exciting new kids I’ll get to meet!

Curriculum, Confusion and Clarification!

Today at Cra – Z – Brain was much more chill than the first two days. I am getting very used to the campers, as well as the day to day running of the business. I spent the early morning creating curriculum for the class I plan on teaching next Wednesday. I ran the lab I plan on doing past Mr. Rothrock, and we acted out a majority of the lab to make sure that it would in fact go as planned. After that, I calculated the cost of materials for the lab, which is another important factor that I am not used to adding into the whole “education” factor. After running through the lab, I sat and talked with the two part time employees to discuss exactly what day to day things an intern might not pick up on. Their insight was very useful to hear, especially on an educational standpoint. I discussed some of my concerns about running a business and or educating to them, and they were able to talk through some of my confusion and help clarify some details about what it means to work for a small local business. In the afternoon, I facilitated the drill station to maintain order as the kids worked on engineering projects! I look forward to tomorrow’s full day of education and activities!

Budget Busting!

Working with a camper on engineering the most effective catapult while keeping it decorated with flower Legos, which until today I had no idea they created.

My second youngest camper, Ryan, working on his catapult!

Today was very similar to my first day at Cra – Z – Brain. In the morning, I sat with Aaron and discussed budgeting. He asked me to create a spreadsheet with two separate columns. One column was the sources of income, and the other column was costs required to run the business. After I created these lists, I was told to estimate the amount of money each item either brought in or costs. While some of my predictions were accurate, other costs (like the cost of rent and profit from each camper) were way off. It was very interesting to see how each much detail goes into calculating and budgeting money. There were little costs to accommodate for that I had never thought of before, such as the prices for a first aid kit or snacks for the campers. After I knew the average income and cost, I calculated how many campers Cra – Z – Brain requires each month to break even. I learned that in business, you have to remember that the supply and demand fluctuates depending on when things are needed. By this, I mean that if Cra – Z – Brain struggles during the off summer months to fill the camper quota, however easily exceeds twice their requirements during the three summer months. After my conversation on business with Aaron, I worked on lesson planning and creating a curriculum for the day I will be teaching next week. Aaron asked for a camp specifically geared towards biology, zoology, chemistry or environmental sciences, so I altered several labs that I have done in the past 3 years to help create a jumping off point for my curriculum. After spending about an hour lesson planning, I led another session on engineering with Legos. The kids, being as young as they are, have already completely adapted to having me around the camp. I’m very excited to continue lesson planning and working with the kids tomorrow!

Legos, Marketing and Campers, Oh My!

During the first day of my Work Experience Program, I was introduced to the Cra – Z – Brain environment, as well as the campers. Cra – Z – Brain focuses on the importance of early childhood education, and also acts as a track out camp for elementary school children The average camper age falls in the range of kindergartners to rising sixth graders. The first half of the camp day was geared towards working with the students and inspiring creativity, as well as getting to know the kids. We played with Legos, which sounds really arbitrary until you realize what is actually happening during this activity. Kids are given the opportunity to create freely, with no restrictions. This allows them to work in areas they are passionate about. One of the students I worked with was very excited about cars, so he designed a Lego car with the fastest speed and most stable weight distribution possible. Another child designed a house, and specifically color coordinated each room to match the purpose of the room. While these activities may seem like pointless time fillers, they let kids experience what it is like to be an engineer or an interior design artist. After spending time with the kids, I discussed advertising and the inner workings of the business with Mr. Rothrock. During this time I also created an outline of what I wish to accomplish in the upcoming weeks. I plan to spend the morning camp working on advertisement and marketing, and work with students in the afternoon. From this structure of internship, I will glean information about both business and education. After lunch, I led a camp session independently to help the kids get used to my presence in the business. Most of the revenue comes from returning members, so it was strange for the kids to see a new face on “campus”. I’m very excited to continue tomorrow, as I had a wonderful first day!