Tinkergarten: Video Audition

     Congratulations!  You have made it to the video portion of your application process!  If you are anything like me I bet you are stressing out a bit.  I felt really nervous about doing this part.  Things like: How am I going to get that many kids to show up?  What if my activity is a flop?  What will they think of me?  and so much more!  I slept so bad the night I found out about the video and the night before I did it, jumping into something new can be very scary.
     Lucky you that you found this blog post to help chill your nerves.  Its not that bad I swear!  They really don't expect much, they understand how scary this is and how hard it can be.  I believe that they just want you to show that you can try.  That you will be able to talk to people, lead a lesson, and not be creepy.  Below I will post a few of my videos and hopefully videos and advice from other leaders will also be added over time.  Tinkergarten will also send you a sample video that shows they don't expect anything beautiful, just an effort.
     I think that I was most stressed about getting people to show up.  I had a few friends with kids, but not the amount they wanted.  How was I ever going to do this?  People can be so flaky how do I know that anyone will even show up?  Was I going to do all of this work to be left embarrassed?  Fear not!  Facebook is your friend and everyone LOVES free things!
     So first things first you need to pick a lesson.  I wrote a nature activity blog about the one that I did, but I feel like I may have put more effort into it than I needed to.  Tinkergarten has an amazing selection of activities for you to pick from with great explanations on how to implement them.  I suggest picking one that you can test out before hand on your own kids or any kid that you can borrow to kinda see how the flow will go.
     Step two is to pick a day, time, and place.  For my video an open park worked well, but keep in mind for future Tinkergarten classes an open field will not be a great choice, trees and water can be very helpful, but that's for another time.  When picking your location make sure its a place you can easily explain how to get to, or leave signs for them to follow.  I recommend not having it near a playground because that can be very distracting!  As for the day and time try to make sure that it wont interfere with any other events going on and try to work around typical meal and nap times as well.
     Now for the part I found the most stressful, getting people to show up.  I created a public Facebook event and shared it on as many local Facebook pages as I could.  I explained the activity that we would be doing and why I needed some help.  I also sent personal messages to the people who were interested, maybes, and going thanking them and letting them know how much I appreciated that they would help me out.  I feel like its harder to ditch out on someone who is depending on you.  Of course I also sent private messages to all of my friends with kids explaining to them what I was doing.

If you make your video and want to add it to the ones that I have here or have any extra advice please let me know!
GOOD LUCK
Amber