Minooka TAP

It’s that time of year again.  We’ve just announced our 2014 adventure and now there’s a gazillion kids, parents, grandparents, and teachers coming to our website.  That’s very exciting for us.  We love having people come check out what we’re all about.

We are super excited about this trip.  It’s going to start in Warsaw, Poland where we’ll see the Jewish Ghetto from WWII, watch a classical music concert from the Polish composer Chopin, and get a taste of some of the greatest food in Eastern Europe.  Then, it’s on to a second country – Belarus.  We’re going to visit a Russian fortress that was a key battleground during the 1930s and 40s, then head south (and back into Poland) to visit Krakow and the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.  After that, we’ll visit Mozart’s home in Vienna, Austria and tour an underground salt mine (complete with a boat ride across an underground lake) in Salzberg.  After Austria, it’s on to Germany where we’ll climb a mountain up to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest Palace then hang out in one of the coolest cities on the planet – Munich.  Our next stop will be the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, then we’ll end the adventure in one of the most beautiful cities on Earth – Prague.

That’s the basics of our 2014 trip, but here’s a little about TAP:

Minooka TAP is made up of 6 teachers.  Mr. Curtis (language arts/literature), Mr. Doerr (social studies), Miss Filetti (la/lit), and Miss Tadey (band) from Minooka Intermediate school, along with Mrs. Harig (ss) at the junior high and Miss Lara (social worker) from another school district.

We’re pretty proud of our little club.  We think it’s the best after school activity anywhere in the world.  For the last 7 years, we’ve been taking groups of 8th grade students on overseas adventures.  So far, we’ve taken 135 Minooka kids to 14 different countries on 3 different continents.  Our adventures have taken us to Germany, Greece, England, Turkey, Italy, Vatican City, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, and Japan.  This coming summer we’ll return to England and add Wales to the list.

We start things when our students are only in 7th grade, then we travel just a few weeks after 8th grade graduation.  We work together, meeting as a group a few times a month for over a year and a half to prepare the kids for every possible aspect of travel – from the academic stuff like history, literature, art, music, language, and culture to the more basic things – packing suitcases, foreign money, using a cell phone overseas, etiquette, and even a little bit about food.

Along the way, our kids write a book.  Yup, you read that right.  Each year our students write their own guidebook/textbook to take with them on the trip.  That book is published through Amazon.com and becomes a pretty cool thing to put on college applications a few years down the road.

We also work a great deal on fund raising.  The students (and their families) are responsible for the basic costs of the trip (which is generally around $3,500), but the group tries to raise money to offset any additional costs (tips, food, extra excursions, and educational materials).

To join TAP, you have to be a current 7th grade student who lives locally.  All you need to do to be considered for our group is fill out the TAPplication section of this site.

Feel free to look around at all the different pages.  The FAQ section covers, in greater detail, the basic stuff, the About TAP section gives you an overview of how we got started with all this, the TAP Trips section gives you a taste of the places we’ve been, and the TAP Teachers sections tells you about the adults that run this program.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment here, chat with us on Facebook, or email us.

We hope to see you application soon.  Please remember, the application deadline is November 14th, 2012.

On October 23rd, the TAP teachers will be heading over to Minooka Junior High for an end of the day assembly.  That afternoon, we’ll be announcing where we’re going on our 2014 tour.

Now, there’s still 2 and a half weeks til that big announcement, but the TAP teachers have been holding on to this information for over a year.  We’ve been dying to tell someone, so here’s a few bits of info that might help you piece it together.

1. This year’s trip will be a first for TAP in a lot of ways.  If you know a bit about TAP’s past trips, you might be able to figure it out.
2. At one point during the 2014 trip, we’re going to be in a boat.
3. That boat… it’s going to be underground.
4. We’ll also be visiting one of the most important historical sites in the world.
5. Finally, there’s a language spoken on this trip that TAP will be hearing for the first time ever.

Go ahead, let the guessing begin.

England kids – our first meeting is next week!

We’re so excited to share some of our Japan stories with you, but also to get started preparing for our trip to England.

This is going to be an incredible trip, and the adventure starts next week.

We meet at MIS in room 111.  Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

Meeting ends at 4:30pm.  Please have your rides there.

If you have a friend that is interested in TAP, please bring them to our meeting.  We currently have 3 spots open on the trip.