It's never too early to start thinking about your future!

click to enlarge photo

 In our classroom, we don't say, "WILL go to college?" . . . instead, we say, "WHICH college will you go to?" 

I believe students need to start thinking about setting a goal to go to college and begin to plan and anticipate it early in life.  The important thing isn't WHERE they go to college; the important thing is that students GO to college.

Each October our fourth grade team takes our fourth grade students on a field trip to Oregon State University, where I earned my undergraduate teaching degree in 1980.  Students construct tsunami evacuation shelters at school and at OSU test them in the World famous O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab. 

These are photos of the tsunami evacuation shelters made by our students on our field trip.  It was a highlight of our college visit. We also took campus tours of several dorm rooms, ate in a campus dining hall using a "real" OSU meal card, toured several academic buildings,  the library, Memorial Union, Dixon Recreation Center, we visited the OSU Bookstore, and Gill Coliseum where the Beavers play basketball.  Our our trip in 2009, students saw James Rodgers, OSU's star wide receiver at Reser Stadium and he signed autographs.  In 2010 our classes were treated by the OSU Womens' Basketball team and coaches to play some games against the OSU team at Gill Coliseum.  

The OSU visit is a day that gets students thinking about college, and that was our goal.  On the bus ride home, students were talking about which college they would be attending. . . awesome words for a teacher to hear!

Students also earn Classroom Cash (we call it Collegiate Cash) for completing homework and projects on time.

Read the newspaper article about our students going to college!

Victoria Jasztal's Scholastic Blog about our college trip