Middle and High School Career Explorations Play Activities
Materials:
- Journal, marking pens, and artist materials for career reflection activities
- Subscription to a career focused or professional association magazine (e.g. coding, STEM, writing, teaching, counseling, legal services, performing arts, youth development, service learning, construction, sports, business, architecture, and fashion)
- Registration and participation in activities relevant to a specific passion or career (e.g. maker fair STEM fairs and competitions, science fairs, writing contests, performing arts contests and shows, family karaoke events, and sports recreation nights)
- Participation and materials that support community service projects
- Registration for online career explorations through a professional career association that supports youth
Activities:
- Encourage your child to write about various passions, interests, and hobbies in a journal and
reflect weekly on relevant activities. Your child can illustrate ideas, brainstorm new projects or concepts, or graph a workplan using different types of art materials in the journal. - Research various subscription options for your child. Local bookstores feature lots of unique publications that focus on hobbies, STEM, performing arts, and self-growth activities.
- Help your child purchase relevant books on her hobbies. For example, a potential educator or writer might subscribe to Writer’s Digest, attend a book writing conference, join a local writers’ group, and participate in writing contests to explore a writing and teaching career and build a portfolio of work.
- Support your child’s interest and registration in career events in your community. Take trips to sites that feature your child’s passion. For example, a family traveled to Ashland, Oregon to attend the summer Shakespeare Festival because their child was interested in majoring in English and later became a marketing executive for a technology company.
- Help your child identify appropriate community service activities relevant to his interests. A child wanted to pursue a career in horticulture and participated with his parents in planting trees throughout the city.
- Register your child in a professional organization relevant to her career interests. Examples include:
- American Educational Research Association for future educators
- Junior Achievement for work-readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy opportunities
- 4-H for agricultural leadership experiences,
- Rotary Club Youth Exchange Program for leadership development, cultural understanding, and to become a global citizen.
Relevant Common Core Standards
Listed below are relevant California Common Core Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects:
- Grades 6 – 8 Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow multiple avenues of exploration.
- Grade 11 – 12 Research to Build and Present Knowledge: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
Copyright © 2018 by GenParenting
Yvette King-Berg, is the Executive Director of Youth Policy Institute’s Charter Schools. She was the former California Charter Schools Association Vice-President of School Development and Outreach-Southern California. Ms. King-Berg has over thirty years of experience working with teachers, students, parents, and organizations in a variety of positions including Director, Assistant Director, Curriculum Advisor, Bilingual, and Title 1 Coordinators, classroom teacher (K-12) in Pasadena and LAUSD. She has been married for twenty-three years, and is the proud mother of her son, EJ, who attends UC Berkeley.