The Wire

Spring Mouse Squad Team Training Wrap-Up

After our original Team Training plans got pushed back by Winter Storm Nemo, Spring Team Training finally took place at Manhattan’s Hudson High School of Learning Technologies on Saturday, March 2nd. Even though the storm tried to steal our thunder it was worth the wait. This was one of the best Team Trainings ever!

We started off the day with a Social Scavenger Hunt before the opening ceremonies. As squads arrived at the event, they were broken up into 4 different teams: Green Godzillas, Orange Orcas, Pink Panthers and Yellow Yaks. Students worked on challenges with members of other squads including creating a secret handshake, drawing a Mouse mascot and writing a short poem or rap about their Mouse Squads. Once they completed every challenge, students got a "For the Win" eraser topper to go on their own Mouse Squad pencil!

Then we moved on to our opening ceremony. After introducing the Mouse staff and giving a preview of what to expect for the day it was time for our classic opening activity: the Great Mousemallow Tower Challenge! Groups of 5-10 students set out to build the tallest freestanding tower they could out of marshmallows and sticks! This time we added a new challenge: each tower had to be built on top of an upside down bucket.

After this exciting kick-off, students rotated through four different workshops (with a lunch break in between). At these workshops Squads learned about using mousesquad.org and CaseTracker, computer hardware basics, understanding and designing school computer networks, and leadership skills.

At the end of the day, students, coordinators and Mouse staff gathered together to close out Team Training with a raffle drawing and shout-outs to the most memorable people and moments of the day. The P.S. 43: The School By the Sea Squad was the raffle’s big winner! They took home a cool 2-way radio set to use when their squad is working on cases throughout the school building.

We had so much fun at Team Training and were thrilled by the enthusiasm of all of our students and Mouse Squad Coordinators.

We want to give a special shout-out again to Hudson High School for hosting us again and to members of Mouse Corps for being awesome facilitators on this important day.