Occupational Course of Study

December 10th 2024: This school year we have two students from the Occupational Course of Study (OCS) at Grimsley High School and two students from OCS at Page High School. It has been a wonderful year so far with kids here Monday through Thursday and the first year I have no students who want to work on the computer. That makes updating the blog with what the kids have been doing is currently my job so, that explains why it has not happened much this school year.

July 8th 2024: Three students attending Page High School OCS Summer School began their summer job site here with us at Joy Watson Real Estate. We will only have them for three weeks for two days each week. We are also working to register our apprenticeship so that we can grow opportunities for people.

Josiah (aka on Instagram Evil Spyder) has moved and he is sorely missed. Here are some photos of what we have been doing here since Josiah moved away.

Folding towels

Aileen helped fold towels when 907 changed to an unfurnished mid-term and traditional rental home. T

Leaf Blowing

Isiah blew leaves off the side porch.

Sourdough in the Kitchen

Making bread is a basic and rewarding skill I love sharing with children and adults. It is the best air freshener.

Splitting Wood

1007 has a huge Willow Oak that we had trimmed. We borrowed a log splitter from a friend of ours and the kids got to help us split this wood up. They will help us move the stack over to behind 900 shed for use in the fire pit and house.

Willow oak was trimmed

1007 has a huge Willow Oak that we had trimmed. We borrowed a log splitter from a friend of ours and the kids got to help us split this wood up. They will help us move the stack over to behind 900 shed for use in the fire pit and house.

1007 Grayland

1007 has a huge Willow Oak that we had trimmed. We borrowed a log splitter from a friend of ours and the kids got to help us split this wood up. They will help us move the stack over to behind 900 shed for use in the fire pit and house.

1007 Grayland

1007 has a huge Willow Oak that we had trimmed. We borrowed a log splitter from a friend of ours and the kids got to help us split this wood up. They will help us move the stack over to behind 900 shed for use in the fire pit and house.

Sourdough Waffles

Aileen and I made Sourdough Waffles with the sourdough discard

Technology in my business

Second year with Josiah. I love having him here so much. He is learning hands on how to use software to run marketing for a small business. We are learning this together.

Making bread

Aileen kneading some sourdough

Watermelon

This is one of the watermelons that the students from 2022-23 school year planted. We invited the kids to come by anytime last summer but none of them did. I think I may need to schedule an event for them to come over this summer.

Leaf Blowing

At Joy Watson Real-Estate some of the OCS students do leaf blowing to move the leaves out of the way.

Getting Eggs

At Joy Watson Real-Estate some students get eggs from the chicken coops. They also feed the chickens.

Cooking In The Kitchen

At Joy Watson Real-Estate some of the OCS students help cook and make treats for guests. They also make treats for the other students.

My Bio 

Hi, I’m Josiah and this is my bio. So to start off I’m the person who edits the Occupational Course of Study (OCS) blog post for JoyWatsonRealestate.com. I also do graphic design for postcards and the Facebook post that most likely brought you here. I’m a Senior at Page High School and I’m volunteering at Joy Watson Real Estate to learn more about graphic design and job skills. When I go home I like to do video editing and some 3D modeling. I use Canva for graphic design and Square Space for editing the blog post. The picture below is me on the computer learning more about content creation. The most fun thing to do on Canva for me is making QR codes. The software I use at home is Canva, Blender, Microsoft Clipchamp, Wallpaper Engine, Source Filmmaker, and Unreal Engine. I use YouTube and Google to learn more about Canva.

These photos are from the 2023-2024 school year

They were putting up the lights for the steps on the porch.

This page is a collaboration between Joy Watson and the students from Page High School who are working here with us during the school year.

We filled out postcards to be mailed into outer space to fly on Blue Origins New Shepard Rocket.

These photos are from the 2022-2023 school year. We planted about 250 bulbs from the Master Gardener program. One of the students worked on marketing and designed a postcard we mailed to everyone in my Idlewood neighborhood. Students helped paint the interior of the garage at 905. They helped me clean out and organize the shed in the backyard at 909. They fed chickens and got eggs every day they came. My mom helped them make some fancy Mother’s Day Cards for their Moms. They helped move trash cans back in on trash day. Students helped saw apart pallets that were used for creating paths in high-traffic areas. We planted so many seeds and then planted the starts in the ground. We made sourdough English muffins and sourdough waffles. Mostly we shared time together and learned about each other.

Repotting some plants on the side porch with my mom, Dottie.

Making Mother’s Day Cards with Dottie

Josiah working on Canva designing up some postcards to be mailed to my neighborhood.

Planting seeds in the pots we made from upcycled magazine pages

feeding the chickens and getting eggs was one of Christian’s favorite jobs.

at the end of the year we made grilled pizza on sourdough crust and had a celebration of our fun times together.

Christian and Malachi love to work outside.

2022-2023 was the first year I had Occupational Course of Study students coming to my house as a job site. As a teacher, I had set up job sites and buses for kids to get to and from job sites. As a job coach, I have been to many job sites and helped students transition into their job sites.

To me, this is one of the best programs offered in the public schools today. It is the program I worked as a teaching assistant (TA) when I first got a job working for Guilford County Schools. It is a program that teaches job and life skills to kids who are not seeking a traditional diploma heading to a four-year college after high school. Students in the Occupational Course of Study (OCS) must complete 900 work hours as part of their graduation requirements. Or at least that was the requirement when I was still teaching. I was a TA at Grimsley, then took a long-term substitute job teaching OCS at Grimsley after I graduated from Greensboro College in 2015. I taught OCS at Andrews High School in High Point for the next three years and then taught resource and inclusion for my last two years at Andrews. I taught for a few months at Gillespie Park before quitting teaching during COVID in 2021.

In one of the AU OCS classrooms at Grimsley High School.

Making bread to learn about fermentation

AU OCS Classroom at Grimsley

One of the jobs the kids did was sweeping around the campus.

The hamburger paragraph graphic organizer is one of my favorite graphic organizers because it is food-related.

During this time Ivy and Ellie were in High School at Grimsley and Ivy was playing Cello in the orchestra

This was a panel of people from NRCS presenting one of the students an award for his work while in OCS

Ivy and I standing in front of the main building of Grimsley High School in the spring of 2014

Pies I made for Christmas gifts for teacher friends at Grimsley

Ellie and a paper sword she made

The AU OCS kids made and published a book of fables

These are writing prompt ideas for AU OCS kids who had three writing entries to submit every week.

One of the writing prompt journals from one of the AU OCS students. I still have all of these journals and the progression of the kid’s writing skills is so amazing to see.

One of the kids riding the bus on the way to their job site.

Me and Dr. Hair, the AU OCS teacher I worked with as a TA at Grimsley High School

Ivy and I during her graduation. I got to hand her diploma to her because I was an employee of GCS at that time.

Two dear teacher friends, Carmen Rock and Michelle Bardsley. We went to lunch one day at Printworks and someone took this photo for us. I worked in both of these women’s classrooms with the AU OCS kids and love love loved working with these ladies!

I volunteered for the Reading Connections of Greensboro and taught adult reading to these wonderful people. Most of them were from Motan Yard.

more baking therapy / gifts for friends.

I made fortune cookies for the kids and teachers at Grimsley a few times.

Teaching about weather with a kite out in the field at Grimsley High School

Carrot cake cupcakes with toasted coconut buttercream frosting. More baking therapy

Example foldable for learning about cycles.

foldable about cycles

I made Dean’s list every semester the whole time I was in college.

I planted a garden at an adult daycare program in downtown Greensboro

My girls and I on my graduation day

In my first fully licensed teaching position at Andrews High School

On the top of my graduation cap.

This is the kitchen next to Greg Desern’s room at Andrews. I would use this kitchen when I needed to teach something involving food.. which was a lot of the time.

Not the beautiful chalk drawings I saw when my kids were in Waldorf school but, teaching about cells.