via animoto.com
Here is a 7-minute slide show video of our 2010 Spring Break East Coast Trip. Enjoy!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
See you at Open House
Any seventh grade parents interested in the Spring Break 2011 trip are welcome to stop by my classroom, Room B-7, tonight (Thu, 4/22) at the Rio Norte Open House from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. We'll have a special photo slideshow and information on how your child can get signed up for next year's trip. I'd love to meet you!
Mr. Ippolito
Sunday, April 18, 2010
East Coast Trip videos
A few videos from the East Coast Trip . . .
Enjoy!
Mr. Ippolito
--
Ron Ippolito
Teacher/Yearbook Adviser, Rio Norte Junior High School
http://www.LincolnIsMyHomeboy.com
E-mail: rippolito@gmail.com
Voice/SMS: (661) 347-4990
Monday, April 12, 2010
East Coast Trip PARENT Survey
Dear East Coast trip PARENT,
OK, now it's your turn. Would you please take a moment to fill out this parent survey? Again, just like the student survey, it should take no more than about five minutes to complete. You can find the link here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M7926LK
Thank you so much for taking the time to complete the survey. I care about your feedback and strive to make each year's tour a little bit better.
Warmest regards,
Mr. Ippolito
East Coast Trip Participant Survey
For all those who participated in this year's East Coast Adventure, I invite you to participate in a quick survey. Parents, please share this link with your son or daughter. It should take less than five minutes to complete.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MLVBBPM
I really do appreciate honest feedback, as it helps me build my itinerary for future East Coast tours. As a special incentive to participate, if we get at least 90% of those who went on the tour (including chaperones) to complete the survey, I will set up a special ice cream sundae bar for everyone at our reunion this Friday!
Thanks!
Mr. Ippolito
East Coast Trip Reunion - Fri, 4/16
Hey East Coast trippers!
By now I hope everyone who traveled with us last week is well-rested and recovered after our very fun (but tiring) week on the East Coast. We are going to have one final gathering (a little reunion of sorts) this Friday, 4/16, at lunch, in Room B-7. We'll watch a little slideshow I'm putting together, I'll give you a disc with over 1,000 photos on it from the trip, I'll give you a quick survey so you can tell me what you thought of all the places we visited and things we did, and I'll also give you back your ID card (you can always come by and pick it up from me if you need it earlier).
I want to say a big thank you to my three fellow chaperones: Ms. Sternberg, Miss Bretthauer, and Mrs. Karzin. They did a great job helping me to keep our kids safe, handling meds, taking roll, doing bed checks, and so much more. The trip would not have gone so smoothly without their help and vigilance. Thank you to all the supportive parents back home who checked in with their kids and reminded them to make good choices. Finally, thank you to our students who made this such a fun experience for all of us.
Warmest regards,
Mr. Ippolito
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Track our drive home
You can track our drive home here:
http://www.instamapper.com/ext?key=12811006476767482289
http://www.instamapper.com/ext?key=12811006476767482289
Estimated ETA is 11:00pm. Just a reminder to please turn your headlights on when you see the coach pull up and please keep the red curb clear.
Sent from my iPhone
Ready for an on-time departure
We're sharing the plane with eighth graders from Anacapa Middle School in Ventura, and a handful of other wary travelers. :-). Fortunately, it seems like both our groups are behaving well.
We are looking at an on-time departure right now. Keep watching us online to track our in-air status. You'll hear from me next when we are in LA!
Sent from my iPhone
Sitting in JFK airport
Free wi-fi. Woo-hoo!!
So I'm in JFK right now while kids are getting dinner and JetBlue offers free wi-fi in the terminal. I'm pretty excited. I'm now uploading yesterday's photos, so you can check them out here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rippolito/EastCoastTrip2010Day5NewYorkCityNYC?aut...
Our flight is still scheduled for an on-time departure. I'll post online if things change. I was also able to update the flight status link on my blog, so now if you go to http://trippolito.blogspot.com, you can track our flight in the air.
Cheers,
Mr. Ippolito
Flight information
So today is our last day on the East Coast! I'm realizing that the flight info link on the right side of my blog may be outdated and I have no wifi access to update it at this time.
You can easily track us by going to Google and putting "Jetblue 673" in the search box. I will continue to update you on our whereabouts throughout the day including the drive home from LAX.
We have about 30 more minutes here on the Intrepid before we hop back onto the coach and head for JFK.
Sent from my iPhone
Friday, April 9, 2010
Kids are all in bed
And it's our final night on the East Coast. The Addams Family was hilarious tonight!
Mr Ippolito is very tired, so I'm afraid the final photos will have to wait until we come home.
I will continue updates tomorrow on the blog, Facebook, and Twitter. This will be the best place to get updates on our travels home as well.
I will have your child CALL YOU when we reach the 5-14 split. This will mean we are about 10-12 minutes away from school and that would be a good time to come on down.
It's possible that the parking lot lights may be off late on a Saturday night, so if everyone could please turn their headlights on when the coach pulls up, then it will make the parking lot safer for everyone. Finally, please leave the red curb wide open for our coach to safely pull up.
We'll see you tomorrow night!
Cheers,
Mr Ippolito
Sent from my iPhone
Lunch and tour of Central Park
Hot dogs, sandwiches, pizza, and the best cookies in New York City from Levain Bakery. Yum!
Sent from my iPhone
Off to enjoy a real New York lunch!
Just finished with downtown: Wall Street, WTC, Trinity Church. Heading uptown now near Central Park for authentic New York hot dogs and deli sandwiches.
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Day 4 Photos uploading right now!
I really need my beauty rest (I need all the help I can get) so I'm uploading the photos right now. Enjoy our day in Philly. Tomorrow we're off to the biggest city in the United States: New York City!
http://picasaweb.google.com/rippolito/EastCoastTrip2010Day4Philadelphia?authk...
RVI
Day 4 Potos uploading right now!
I really need my beauty rest (I need all the help I can get) so I'm
uploading the photos right now. Enjoy our day in Philly. Tomorrow
we're off to the biggest city in the United States: New York City!
uploading the photos right now. Enjoy our day in Philly. Tomorrow
we're off to the biggest city in the United States: New York City!
RVI
Great day today, late night tonight
It was a late night tonight in Philadelphia after returning from the Mad Cap Theatre performance. It was hilarious and the kids had a great time. I'm just getting around to photos now.
I do need to say that our kids (with just a couple of little, minor exceptions) behaved fabulously today. We noticed this especially in contrast to a middle school from Palo Alto who joined us in the audience for this evening's performance. Unfortunately, they were not nearly as well-behaved (they talked through practically the whole show!) and (worse) their chaperones did nothing about it. I sent a concerned e-mail to the principal and assistant principals of the school already to let them know the kind of impression their students and adults had made tonight.
I got an auto-reply e-mail back from the principal that began, "I am out of the office through April 13 to support a field trip to Washington DC . . ." Awesome.
Photos up in a few. :-)
RVI
At the National Liberty Museum
Just left the National Constitution Center, and then after this our next stop is Reading Terminal Market for lunch.
Sent from my iPhone
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Day 3 photos now online!
We had mostly a day of travel today. Enjoy the photos of our travels through Pennsylvania!
http://picasaweb.google.com/rippolito/EastCoastTrip2010Day3GettysburgAmishCou...
http://picasaweb.google.com/rippolito/EastCoastTrip2010Day3GettysburgAmishCou...
RVI
Menu for tonight's dinner
Starters: fresh-baked rolls with butter, cole slaw, raisin bread with apple butter, pickled veggies
Dinner: fried chicken, chicken pot pie, pork sausage, roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, mixed veggies and butter noodles
Dessert: homemade vanilla ice cream, shoo fly pie, apple dumplings, and chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting
Sent from my iPhone
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Photos are now online
Time for me to go to bed, but just wanted to let you all know that
today's photos are now online. You can link to them from the blog at:
http://trippolito.blogspot.com
today's photos are now online. You can link to them from the blog at:
http://trippolito.blogspot.com
Great day today! Tomorrow, Gettysburg and Amish Country!!
Cheers,
Mr. Ippolito
--
Ron Ippolito
Teacher/Yearbook Adviser, Rio Norte Junior High School
http://www.LincolnIsMyHomeboy.com
E-mail: rippolito@gmail.com
Voice/SMS: (661) 347-4990
Day 2 done and photos now online
A great day today! Photos are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rippolito/EastCoastTrip2010Day2WashingtonDC?authk...
http://picasaweb.google.com/rippolito/EastCoastTrip2010Day2WashingtonDC?authk...
Tomorrow, Gettysburg!
RVI
Just finished dinner
Doing a little final DC souvenir shopping and then off to see Little Shop of Horrors at Ford's Theatre!
Sent from my iPhone
National Cathedral facts
Construction began on the cathedral in 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation stone. The cathedral wasn't completed until 1990. It is the second largest cathedral in the US and the sixth largest in the world.
Sent from my iPhone
Just finished lunch
Lunch was at Union Station today. Next stop is the National Cathedral.
Sent from my iPhone
Rise and shine
Just finished with breakfast and on our way to our US Capitol Tour.
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, April 5, 2010
Good first day on the East Coast!
We were pretty exhausted with our red-eye flight, but everyone still managed to make it through the first day of our East Coast Trip. We saw Arlington National Cemetery, Ford’s Theatre, the North Lawn of the White House, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, President Obama drive past us (well, I doubt he was actually driving, but you get the idea), the Iwo Jima Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and finished up with the Lincoln Memorial. Whew! That was a full day.
A couple things I spoke to the kids about today:
- Chewing gum. There are so many places that we go to that don’t allow it that we just say, “No gum while on tour” to make it easier on everyone. We’ve had most every student doing a great job with this, but we’ve had a couple kids “forget.”
- Cell phones. I tried to make it crystal clear prior to departure that cell phone use is limited to “transit time” in between major cities and in the hotel in the evening and morning. Had a couple kids with them out at lunch today.
- Sliding down the banister at the Lincoln Memorial. Banisters are for gripping as you descend stairs, not for use as an express lane. All railings and banisters are off-limits for sliding. I didn’t specifically mention that prior to the tour, but didn’t think I needed to.
- Name badges. Thankfully, only one student dropped his name badge on the ground, and thankfully a wonderful student from our group turned it into me. We’ve also had just a couple left accidentally on the coach. Everyone else has been very conscientious, but these are really important to keep on the entire tour.
A couple things we’ll remind about tomorrow (and you could help us with):
- We’re not forcing the kids to drink water at meals, so many of them are gravitating to soda. It was warm and humid today, and the temperature is supposed to go up tomorrow. Headaches are often the result of dehydration, and Coke at every meal is just going to make things worse (we even had some early-morning cola drinkers at breakfast!!). We’ll keep reminding about eating and drinking healthy, and hope you can too.
- Kids by and large have been very polite and considerate to those around us. We got big kudos from the flight crew last night and we’re hoping to keep up the good work.
- Stay to the right, stay to the right! If you text this to your child, they’ll know exactly what you mean. Sometimes when we walk in a group of 42, we tend to think we own the sidewalk. We need to continue to be mindful of those who are also enjoying our nation’s treasures.
Thanks for your help in continuing to reinforce positive behaviors and positive attitudes. Hope you’re enjoying the updates and photos! I will try to do the same again tomorrow!
RVI
Presidential motorcade
Why is there all this traffic?? Oh, President Obama just drove by us.
Sent from my iPhone
At the National Museum of American History
Just saw the ORIGINAL Star Spangled Banner from the War of 1812. Awesome!
Sent from my iPhone
DC is hopping today!
It's the annual White House Lawn Easter Egg Roll and over 30,000 people will be participating. Sadly, we can't get in because we don't have anyone age 8 or younger. :-). Later, President Obama will be throwing out the first pitch as the Nationals take on the Phillies. We've already seen kids from Placerita and Rancho Pico. Small world!! Right now it's time for lunch at the Reagan Center.
Sent from my iPhone
Senator Edward Kennedy's grave
It's the white wooden cross just above our tour guide's hand. Robert Kennedy's grave is just beyond.
Sent from my iPhone
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Leaving Rio Norte....
Heather Ippolito here, hacking into Ron's east coast blog.
Since they are in transit I thought I would post the first pictures of the trip :)
Tearful goodbyes...
lead to joyous beginnings...
as the kids set off on this great adventure!
They will have a wonderful time...
and make new friends.
So enjoy your week "off!"
Love,
Heather
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