The Moment the Lights Came Back On: School Assembly Ideas That Actually Work
I’ve done this numerous times, and it still surprises me.
The gym goes dark. Water ripples appear on the ceiling and walls, projected light dancing across the faces of 200 kids sitting cross-legged on the floor. I lower my voice and ask them to close their eyes. We’re not in Wisconsin anymore. We’re off the coast of Alaska, swimming 300 feet below the surface, where the water is cold and black and very, very quiet.
We’re a school of fish.
Then I tell them something is out there. Something big. So big that when it swims past us, the water it displaces sends our entire school tumbling and swirling through the dark.
“Would you like to meet her?”
The answer is always the same. Yes.
3... 2... 1.
The fans kick on. And for the next two minutes, something happens in that darkened gymnasium. Clara grows. And grows. And grows. Her eye appears. Her flipper catches the light. Her tail flukes fan out and land on the gym floor with a motion that makes kids gasp.
Then the gym lights come back on.
I never expected that to be the moment. The darkness, the story, the inflation, I genuinely thought that was the peak. But every single time, it’s the lights coming back on that breaks the room wide open to show me just how excited these kids are. My mid-October visit to All Saints Catholic School in Berlin was no different. The gym erupted. Loud, genuine, full-body cheering from kids who were about to find out they’d be going inside her.
That’s school season, folks.
We’ve been busy. LaCrosse, Berlin, Hartland, Schofield, Crandon. All these beautiful towns just in the last few weeks. Early mornings loaded with coffee and beautiful sunrises. Autumn leaves blowing across the highways. And at the schools, wonderful teachers. Principals who light up when Clara walks through the door. At the Wisconsin Principals Convention earlier this month, I shared a booth with Sean Sullivan, The Mammoth Hunter, and we spent a day talking to educators about what it looks like when science stops being something kids read about and starts being something they live inside.
At the convention, just like at schools and libraries, the response was exactly what you’d expect when you put a 56-foot whale and a woolly mammoth in the same room. This sounds like the opening to a corny joke, but the punchline is actually pretty cool, and potentially life-changing for these kids.
One question I keep hearing from schools is: how do we pay for this?
The honest answer is that most schools don’t pay for it out of their own budget. They find the money. Parent organizations, local foundations, community donors... and grants. Forest Whales has been working directly with schools on grant writing, helping them identify opportunities and put together applications. If your school is interested in bringing us in but isn’t sure how to make the numbers work, reach out. We’ve helped schools find a path more often than you’d think, and this will be one of the most memorable school assembly ideas a principal can offer.
Next summer is shaping up to be the biggest thing we’ve ever done. I’ll share more soon.
For now, I’ll just say this: the work is good. The kids are incredible. And I genuinely cannot believe this is my job.
If you want Forest Whales at your next school assembly, please contact us today!
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