In this episode, Tiffiny takes a look back at our Sage Stage guests. Sage Stage is our weekly virtual guest speakers series that provides live interactive instruction and entertainment. Sage Stage takes place via Zoom every Friday at 9:00am. All TK-12 Sage Oak students are welcome to attend. See the weekly Sage News for the upcoming guest.
Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.
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In this episode, Tiffiny takes a look back at our Sage Stage guests. Sage Stage is our weekly virtual guest speakers series that provides live interactive instruction and entertainment. Sage Stage takes place via Zoom every Friday at 9:00am. All TK-12 Sage Oak students are welcome to attend. See the weekly Sage News for the upcoming guest.
Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.
Sage Oak Website
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So I was recently at a social that we have here for Sage Oak with our students, and I was talking to a couple of students and I was really surprised. Some of them had no idea what Sage Stage was. I know it's crazy, right? A few of them didn't even know that Sage Stage existed and I thought, Okay, I gotta make a podcast on this. I have to walk people through the amazing guests that we've been able to invite to our Sage Stage and let you know what this is. If you don't know. So if you don't know, Sage Stage is our weekly. Virtual guest speaker series that I host every Friday at 9:00 AM It's so much fun and all students are invited. We send the Zoom link out every week in our Sage News. You just hop on the Zoom link. And then we have tons of different guests. We have musicians, we have authors, we have animal experts. Sometimes we have our community providers, sometimes we have members of a student club. It's just always changing, and the presentations are really great. They are really interactive. The students get to get in the chat and, you know, give their answers to different questions. They actually get to come on screen if they want to, and talk to some of our guests, and they get to ha, you know, just interact into that live q and a right then and there. Sometimes we play games, sometimes we compete, sometimes we get to see like cool animals in action. A lot of times too, like our students, they get to get in the mix as well. So if we're writing a story, they get to contribute their ideas. It's just a lot of fun. So. What I wanted to do today was just kinda walk you through some of our past Sage Stage guests. So if you are listening to this podcast you're not going to get a chance to see all the cool slides that I'm going to show you. So you may also want to head over to our YouTube channel and check out this podcast where you can see the slides. I'm going to be walking you through today. If you want to find us on YouTube, you can at Sage Oak Charter Schools with an S. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen for those of you that are watching this video, and I'm going to take you through some of our amazing Sage Stage guests and show you a little bit and talk about the people that we've had on our show. So, All right, Sage Stage. So again, you can join us on the Sage Stage every Friday at 9:00 AM via Zoom, and we send the link out in our SAGE news. We also will let you know who the upcoming guest is on the Sage Stage. You can read a little bit of a bio about them to see it's somebody that you're interested in, so be looking for that in the Sage News. All right, so this is one of our all-time favorites. This is Brent Daniels. So Brent is a Hollywood movie music trailer producer. Such a mouthful, but he's the one who writes and produces all the music for those movie trailers that you see the big ones, like the Marvel movies, you know, Black Panther and some of those. I know that he also does music for some TikTok-ers and he, I mean, he's just all over the place. He's really active in the music industry and these Sage Stage episodes with him are so much fun because they're super interactive. Now what he does in these Sage Stage episodes is he gives us kind of a breakdown of all the equipment that he's going to use during the Sage Stage. And he talks about, you know, how to use the different equipment to make different beats and different tracks and how you layer all of that together. And then he records some of the kids while we're actually on the Zoom call. So he'll record them saying like funny things like, yo, or I Got You. Or something just fun and silly. And then he'll record it into his song and he'll like, find a beat through that. He'll slow it down, he'll speed it up. He'll find one little thing and then he'll turn that into a beat and turn that into a song by layering all of these beats that he collects with the kids during the show. And I mean, it's so awesome and we have had kids of all ages join in on this Sage Stage call and contribute their sounds and their voices and their funny little phrases and it always is super special and super fun. So we even had a Sage Stage student who was in the Virtual Learning Academy, who was calling in from the backseat of his car while he was on his way to a beach cleanup day with his school and he got his voice recorded on the call and into Brent's machine, and Brent used it to produce part of the music. So that was a lot of fun. So Brent is amazing. Super cool. That's always a great Sage Stage This was another one that was super fun. This is Corey the Dribbler. Now Corey the Dribbler is a Guinness Book of World record holder. He can dribble up to six basketballs at a time, and it's really quite phenomenal to see him do it. And he was great because he. He's kind famous. He was formerly a Harlem Globe Trotter. Yes, I know Harlem Globe Trotter. And he came on our Sage Stage and he talked all about how he became a Harlem Globe Trotter. He talked all about how he just wanted to be in the world of basketball, but he didn't think he could quite make it as an N B A player. So we've tried to figure out what could he do to get himself into the world of basketball. And he realized that if he was able to do something really well and learn the tricks like the Harlem Globetrotters, he might have a chance to actually join that team. And he read a book about it and he got really focused. And he talks about how he decided that when he wanted to become part of the Harlem Globe Trotters, that he was going to practice. I don't know, something crazy. I don't want to make it up, but I want to say it was like three hours in the morning. Three hours at night, dribbling basketball. So he just taught himself how to do it. And then from there he started learning how to do different tricks. And it was finally when he could really do something unique and different that the Harlem Globe, DRO Harlem Globetrotters I was like, okay. Come on in. We got you. And so he toured with them for a while and then he kind of went on his own and he toured all in Asia, in Europe and all on the other side of the world. And he would do these halftime shows where he would dribble six basketball. So it's really cool. He broke it down and taught us how he went from dribbling one to dribbling two and how he had to find like different rhythms and different beats to kind of add in that next level of basketball dribbling. And then he really tied it in to how you can use that same. Approach to life and how you can really take things one at a time and then once you master it, you can add in something else. So lots of character building within this really super entertaining Sage Stage. So we love this one. It was great. Corey is trying to go for the world record of dribbling seven basketballs, but he has to be able to do that for 30 seconds consecutively, and he has not mastered that skill yet. So that's what he's working on. Maybe we'll, we'll see him break that record as well and we'll have him back on our Sage Stage so he's a lot of fun. We enjoyed Corey a lot. Okay, this is Jamie. Hey Jamie. Jamie is one of our Sage Oak community providers. So if you are interested in taking art classes, she offers both in-person classes at her studio and she offers virtual classes in her studio, which is really great. That is kind of a little secret. If you are willing to take virtual classes, you can tap into so many of our Sage Oak community providers, because many of them provide virtual classes and then you're not just limited to the community providers that are in your geographic region. So, if you find a Sage Oak provider that you're really interested in, Ask them. Ask her if they do virtual classes. And they might, especially, you know, post covid, a lot of people that never intended on doing virtual classes kind of switched to that model and offer something in that capacity. So Jamie's one of 'em. She has these virtual classes and actually I really like the virtual classroom experience personally, because you see how you get to watch her demonstrate up close, and so you get to really see like what is she doing watching her hand as she's doing the technique. And then she's also talking to you and explaining things to you as well. She also is really great at breaking down art into things that make so much sense that you almost are like, how come I didn't know that already? But it's because she's such a good teacher. Like she'll just talk to you about things like, okay, today we're using all hot colors and then we're going to contrast them in the background with all cool colors. And when you think of hot colors, you're thinking of like fire and sun. And when you're thinking of cool colors, you're thinking about places where you would go to cool off, like under a shady tree or in the grass, or near water and she just, I love the way that she talks about it. And then she also will say things about okay, today we're doing things that are all about texture, and she'll show you how to make texture. Today we're working just with lines and dots, and she'll just take a simple concept like lines and dots and show you how you can put that into a beautiful piece of artwork. She makes everyone just feel like they can do it, and it's really cool.. Our kids love this one. They always come ready with their supplies. It doesn't even take many supplies like paper, a pencil, a sharpie, and then maybe some watercolors, like just those good old like cray kind of watercolors. Any watercolors will do. Sometimes you can just use crayons, oil, pastels if you have 'em. Just some, a few like simple things and you can really make a great piece of art. So we always love it when it's an art day ever at the Sage Stage. So fun! Okay, this one is creepy. This one is our animal expert. And for those of you that are just listening to this podcast, I'm looking at this giant yellow snake. It's a Albino Python, something like that if I recall. And this snake is super friendly, so he says, I guess I'm not a snake person, in case you can't tell. But the kids love it. They love to squeal and squirm as much as they love to just be like fascinated and watching the snake. So this is Ben. And Ben comes onto our Sage Stage as well, and he brings all these cool animals. So he brings the snake. He brings lizards, he brings big, huge like bullfrogs or toads he brings Turtles, it's really fun. He feeds the turtle lettuce and you just get to watch up close the way that the turtle snaps on the lettuce, and that's always super exciting. And then he feeds the lizards, these little meal worms and the tongue of the frog will come out and it's super sticky and just s slurps up little things that he puts out their for to eat. So I don't know why this is so exciting, but it is, it's so fun and we just love it. And then in the meantime, he's giving us really cool facts, like snakes don't have eyelids and you know, they're not as slimy as they look. And he explains how they regulate their body temperature. And we just have a lot of fun and learn a lot of really cool things whenever we have an animal expert on the Sage Stage. So that one's a lot of fun. Okay, this is Matt. Okay. Matt has been on the Sage Stage a couple times. He's so cool and he's such a nice guy. He is a BMX champion and he was on that show America's Got Talent and he submitted his videos on their YouTube contest of him riding a B M X bike and he won the whole thing, like he was like their YouTube champion. So then he got invited to come onto the actual set and do things on America's Got Talent as well, which totally catapulted his career. He's also part of Team U S A. So he rides for Team USA that has allowed him to travel all over the world like Dubai, and I mean, just anywhere and everywhere that you can think of. He goes and he shows off all these cool B M X tricks that he can do. He also has a world record for doing this thing. I totally forget what it's called. Maybe a tail whip. I don't know. But it's like he spins the bike around like super fast, like a, like really, really fast. And then he can do it like 45 times in a minute or something like that. And then the kids will count why he does it, which is really fun. And we try to see can he break his world record today? Can he do more than his world record? So they get all hyped, he's got the music pumping. It's just such a good time. And then he does this other thing, which is so cool, which is the glow in the dark ride. So he puts on this cool suit I think guess it's white. And then he turns off all the lights and then just turns off these like glow lights. So just his suit is glowing and his bike too glows and so you just see him in the dark riding around and it so cool. And then he does it with a black colored bike, so you can't see it at all. And it just looks like he's floating and doing weird tricks and it's so awesome. We have so much fun. So that is Matt Wilhelm. He's also a super cool guy. He has his own kids and sometimes he puts his kids in little videos about helmet safety or about how to persevere and have grit and determination when you're trying to learn new tricks and, and not give up. And so he's really cool. Some we love when Matt comes by the Sage Stage. This is Eric Litwin, and if you don't know who Eric Litwin is, you might know something he's pretty famous. He is famous for a book, his first book that that was like a major success was called. Pete the Cat. How many of you love Pete the Cat books? Okay, so Eric Litwin was the original author of the Pete the Cat book series. He started off as a teacher and then he wrote this series and he just was looking for a fun way to teach kids how to read. You know, he just wanted to be fun and exciting. So he wrote that book and then the illustrator James Dean decided that he would purchase that book series and kind of take it and run with it. So you'll see that a lot of the books now are written and illustrated by James Dean and I think his wife gets in on that too. And Eric Litwin just kind of moved on to do some other series, but it's really fun to have him on. He's really great for the younger kids. He sings guitar. Sings guitar plays, guitar sings songs reads his books, super interactive. He's really entertaining and fun. Just another great hearted guy. He loves kids, he loves learning, he loves music and he loves to just be silly and have fun while teaching kids to enjoy reading and enjoying music. So he's a fun guest as well. We really enjoyed having him stop by the Sage Stage. This was Ranger Emily. This was a really cool one. She's a national park ranger out in Arizona, and she was talking to us all about national parks and she was telling us about visiting a national park and how it's really a cool experience and all the neat things that you can do. And she was telling us about how different parks have different features, like different plants or different rocks and maybe one rocks that are, you know, sedimentary where others are more like igneous rocks. And that is all based on what's been happening there with the weather for centuries and explaining about how it, how things look back in the days of dinosaurs compared to what they look like today. And she's actually really super pa. Passionate about national parks, and she makes it fun and exciting for the kids to learn about those things too. She talks about different, like bones that were found or different like fossils and how that even Ocean animal bones, fossils are found in places that we consider to be really desert regions. And she gets into what does all of that mean? And so she's just a lot of fun to talk to. So that was a great episode too, when we had ranger Emily, come on the Sage Stage. Okay, this is Chris. Chris is so cool. Chris is a hip hop dancer and educator, so he will bring the fun. Let me tell you, this is a Sage Stage that is super interactive. No one is sitting down for this one the whole time. We're like moving and grooving and he is teaching kids about the history of hip hop and how it all started and how really these social dances were really what kind of brought people together. So a social dance is something that like, is really easy to do that everyone can do together, right? So you know how sometimes for different songs like The Macarena or something like that, I know I'm dating myself with that one, but like you can, everyone does the same dance moves and it makes it really fun because you're all doing it together, right? That's social dancing. And then he teaches us how to break down things like the wave and the robot and you see everybody on the Sage Stage you know, trying to do their wave or they're robot and it's super fun and it's just a good time. And he teaches you like different combinations. Everyone's moving and grooving the whole time and he makes it so that it's really fun and really easy and he just talks about being happy, being healthy, being active, getting your body moving. And then also too, like how to think about building a, a routine that it's really just a matter of, you know, a couple of dance moves plus a couple of dance moves, plus another couple of dance moves and there you go. You got a combination and you just can just repeat that and, and do it with the music. So Zonda Dance, super fun. We always like when Chris stops, Okay, this is a good one. This is our wacky scientist. All right. This is Doug, the wacky scientist, and he does a really fun assembly. He does experiments with us where he's showing us in like how to do things with vinegar and baking soda. Things that make the styrofoam cups totally dissolve, or you know, how you can shake up the vinegar and baking soda inside a bottle and it can make a balloon expand. Like just really fun things like that. We did this cool thing where we like tie our arms and in knots and he shows us how to transfer that to a rope. So just a lot of fun, cool, interactive things. And he also talks about how a lot of the things that make for great experiments can just be found in your kitchen pantry or at the grocery store. And so that makes it really easy for students to access and repeat some of these same experiments at home. So he's wild and crazy and zany and he is just a lot of fun. So we always like a wacky science show. That's a good time. Okay, this is another favorite. This is Shamiel Gary. Shamiel is a former N F L athlete. Yeah, professional football player came to the stage stage, so he's professional football player. He played with the Miami Dolphins. He played with the Patriots. Some other teams and now that he retired from the N F L, he is a speaker and an author. So he writes some children's books. He also does a lot of motivational speaking and he talks to kids about making their right choices in life and setting goals for themselves. And when we started this podcast, Shamiel was one of the first people I shared this idea with. I'm like, Shamiel I really want to, you know, help Sage Stage start this podcast. And this is our idea. And we really want to be able to create a cool podcast where we can educate parents on the awesome programs that we have. And we also want to be able to provide some, some goal setting advice to our students and let them see how other people created careers for themselves. And that way they can learn from their mistakes, learn from their successes, just, gain more insight into how do you go from being a high school student to having a career that you love and that you're passionate about. And so I shared this with Shamiel and I'm like, would you please be our guest? And he was like, yes, of course. I would love to. So he is so nice and you can catch up. It's episode one. It's our longest one that we have so far because he and I can just talk for days. But he was kind enough to do our very first Sage Stage, no Sage Studio podcast. So if you want to check out that episode, it's episode number one of the Sage Studio Podcast. Go check out my conversation with Shamiel Gary. And he really talks about it. He talks about. Like his dream of being a professional football player and what it took for him to get there and then now what life is like after he plays football and how he gets to impact the lives of people now with his public speaking. So he's a cool guy, really nice guy. We love having Shamiel on the Sage Stage and the Sage Studio. Thanks Shamiel. Okay, this one is so cool. This is George. George is a musician who got these gigs traveling around the world to play. and then he started bringing his bicycle with him to these places so that when he was touring places he could go and take his bicycle and ride around and see the cities of where he was living. But it really opened up this ability for him to get to know different cultures and all these different communities of people, and he realized how his music and his bike were really a great way for him to bond with people of these different communities, even if they didn't speak the same language or have anything else in common. So he created this really cool presentation called Tales from a Bicycle. and in his presentation he talks all about what it's like to go around the world and Sends his bike in pieces, it arrives to wherever he goes, and then he has to assemble it all together. And then he talks about how he meets people and how he engages and he interacts with people and they become friends and they eat meals together. And he goes and he meets their family and their friends and sees where they live. And it's really, really cool. And he just brings a really great message to our students about how we're all part of the same world and how culture and diversity actually can really bond us. How music and bicycles and traveling can really inspire us to inspire and impact others. It's a really awesome message. So that's a great Sage Stage. And this was another fun one too. Again, more of our Sage Oak community providers. So these are two of our musical Sage Oak Community Providers. Cheryl Lewis and Matt Murray. Cheryl is hysterical. She is full of energy and she loves to sing. She's one of these people that while you are talking to her like she bust out a song or she'd probably take anything that she has to do or say, like even a grocery list probably. And she'll just sing it out for you. Right. And she will this was you know, I think this was during the wintertime and she just belted out this total rock version of Jingle Bells that the kids thought was so great and just so fun. And so she's a really great time. She does music lessons for all ages and instrument lessons. And one of the things that I really liked about her was that she talks about how learning to read really helps you be better at music. And learning to read music is really foundational to being a great vocalist or playing music. And so she really thinks that it's a critical skillset to helping students play. And so many times students just want to like jump in and teach me how to play the instrument, right? Or I just want to listen to it and then match the sounds. But she really talks about that music literacy part of it, being able to really read music and how that is critical to growth as musician and as a student. So she's really fun. And then Matt is so great. Matt did a really awesome course for us that was all on the history of music and going through the decades. And he took our students on a journey to listen to all different genres of music over all different kind of decades. And we talked about like rhythm and melody and like the sway of music and how to get into that and how to recognize what different types of music throughout different genres in different decades you know, offered just such unique things. And that was a really fun Sage Stage. The kids loved it. They were like, oh, my mom listens to this song, or, oh, my grandparents used to always play that. And so that was fun for them to be able to connect that. And a few of the songs that he played, we're like maybe classics to us, but totally brand new to the kids. And so they loved that. They loved hearing something new and he loved sharing that with them. So he's a great instructor too. And we always love being able to tap into our Sage Oak Community providers because they offer wonderful courses and classes. Okay. That brings us to the end of my little walk down memory lane of the Sage Stage. Those are just like some of the guests that we have had so far. Not all of them, but you can see why Sage Stage is so much fun and we are always looking for new. Sage Stage guest. So if you have someone that you think would be a great Sage Stage guest, we would love to hear from you. You can always go to support@sageoak.education and just enter in your idea there and they will forward it over to me and I can take a look at that. And if you are listening to this and you are a community provider of ours and you want to be. Featured on our Sage Stage as a guest. We would love to work out the details with you. And again, just go to support@sageoak.education. They'll filter that message over to me and we'll see what we can work out. We would love to be able to include more of our community providers there. So, so fun for you to get a chance to see all of them and what they showcase. And again, it's just such a fun, cool interactive experience for the kids and me. I have a lot of fun too. So, with that, if you are interested in joining us on the Sage Stage, that link will be in your Sage News. Look for it to come out every week. And then Sage Stage is Friday.
Fridays at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time. All right. See you then. I hope to have you over at the Sage Stage it'll be fun. It's a good time. All right. Take care. See you on the next one.