We look forward to having you and your class at an 826michigan Field Trip soon! Please use this form to book an available day and time for your Field Trip. Please email denise@826michigan.org with questions about Detroit field trips.
Field Trip Descriptions
Writers are people who collect and use the juiciest words in their work. Together staff, volunteers, and students read The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds aloud. In small groups, students work to collect special words about a chosen topic (for example, weather) that they will illustrate as part of a themed book for publication.
Students arrive (in their pajamas, if possible) and learn that our grumpy editor, Dr. Blotch, needs help falling asleep. Students work collectively with a storyteller and a typist to draft bedtime stories for Dr. Blotch, building imaginative characters, setting, and conflict into the tale.
Staff, volunteers and students read Goldilocks and The Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems together. Dr. Blotch urges everyone to draft new versions of Goldilocks. Students work in small groups to plan and then write their own fill-in-the-blank version of Goldilocks and the Three _______. Students write their own endings to take the tale in any direction they see fit.
Staff, volunteers, and students work together to develop original characters and setting for a story, and then break into small groups to write an engaging conclusion with the goal of publishing a book with our hard-to-please editor Dr. Blotch.
Students explore what a monument is and can be, using collaborative brainstorming and writing to imagine new possibilities for local ways to honor heroes and specialties, and then crafting a persuasive paragraph to pitch their ideas to an audience of readers.
In the history of the world, there have been an innumerable amount of poems published and sometimes, they are where writers turn for inspiration. But how do we honor the spirit of the poems we love without copying them? Poetry taxidermy is the solution that keeps on giving!
Students will use their own questions and ideas about animals interacting with their habitats to solve a problem through writing. They will help Dr. Blotch, our grumpy and confused editor, learn about animals and their habitats by using laboratory notebooks to take observation notes, ask questions, and write descriptions of what they see, smell, hear, feel, and think.
Students read example advice-seeking letters and work together to consider the steps readers would need to take to solve their dilemma and write original responses to the questions!
Students begin writing an adventure story together and break into small groups to collaborate on a series of exciting twists, turns, and surprise endings.
Students free write about what they want to change in their country, city, and school, and then work together in small groups to craft an issue-based zine using pictures, magazine cutouts, and words for a specific audience of readers.
One of the things that readers often say they love about books is the ability to be transported somewhere new and wondrous. Imagine if you could have this same spectacular journey, but with the economy of words we call poetry? Serving as both readers and writers, participants will have the chance to create this world of wonder and adventure.
In partnership with Third Man Records and Lafayette American, the Song Shop field trip is a two-part program where students compose, rehearse, and record their own original song about the story of Detroit. Musicians from Third Man Records and designers from Lafayette American share insight into their strategies and creative processes and students have the chance to try these methods along with support by the musicians.