The sixth grade class at Old Mission Peninsula School (OMPS) is on the move! To New York City, that is.
On Tuesday, May 28, Carly Snider and her six sixth grade students will be departing from the Grand Rapids airport to experience the museums, food, culture and theatre of New York City. Each day they will visit two different museums, including the 9/11 Tribute Museum and the National Metropolitan Museum.
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The class will also be going on a culinary adventure while there, dining on traditional Chinese, French and Thai cuisine, most of which her students have never experienced.
Students will also take a ferry tour around the Statue of Liberty and see a show at the famous Orpheum Theatre. Each of these experiences align to the World Geography, Literature or Science curriculum that Snider’s class has studied throughout the year.
The cost of the trip is a little over $1000 per student, and Snider proposed the trip to the school board in January. That left only four months for Snider and her students to raise the $6,000 dollars they needed to fund the trip, and they’ve reached that goal.
Every Friday morning, the students would arrive to school an hour early to brew coffee to sell to the school community. They also sold Higher Grounds coffee by the pound, held a Mom2Mom Sale, hosted a Painting with a Twist event, held a silent auction, and sold OMPS tumblers.

“This trip is more than a field trip,” says Snider. “It’s about experiencing history and different cultures outside our own world. I believe these types of experiences enrich learning and understanding of different ways of life.”
She adds, “It’s also a practical example of our values at OMPS and of our community. The students, parents, teachers and the community worked together to make this trip possible. For some, this will be the first time they’ve been on an airplane. For others, it will be the first time they try a different cuisine. For everyone, it will be the first time they visit New York City and have all these new experiences in one place over a number of days.”
Snider notes that OMPS plans to bring more unique experiences to the students, in addition to traditional learning practices to give students a wide range of learning opportunities.
Old Mission Peninsula School opened as a charter school last September. Since then, the teachers have received multiple grants for the science program and community projects.
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