Ms. Cramer’s 4th grade class gets Cubs surprise!

On Wednesday, March 15, Walt Disney Elementary fourth grade teacher Jodi Cramer gave her class quite a surprise. That’s when she’ll finally unveiled the reward she’s been working on for her students for about two months. All 22 students will be special guests of Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts and treated to a tour of Wrigley Field and attend a Cubs game Opening Week on Thursday, April 13! Watch the video from today’s surprise announcement and also be sure to view the picture gallery at the end of this story.

How did all of this come about and how did Mr. Ricketts find out about this small class in Mishawaka, Indiana?

In August at the start of this school year, Ms. Cramer came up with a creative way using her love of baseball and the Cubs to prepare, motivate and encourage her students to do well on Spring 2017 ISTEPs.

She started out by naming her class “TEAM Cramer,” which stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. Ms. Cramer even had the motto put on Cubs t-shirts for her “players” (students). T.E.A.M. Cramer is a very diverse team of players, including several English New Language Learners. Ms. Cramer “coached” her players by teaching them diversity is their strength.

Coach Cramer developed a rigorous “spring training” regimen to get her team ready for “Opening Day,” or as the rest of us know it … ISTEP! Spring training for the players included practicing their target skills, building player endurance and gaining confidence. Each week of spring training leading up to ISTEP testing (Feb. 27-March 10) represented an “inning” with players setting goals for themselves.

The players wrote the goals on paper baseball cutouts, which she placed on a bulletin board. As the players reached their individual goals, they moved their baseball “hitting” it out of “Cramer Field” scoring a run for the class team.

Ms. Cramer kept track of the runs for each week on a large scoreboard in the classroom. If TEAM Cramer scored enough runs in an “inning” (week), the players earned a fun team building activity each Friday. TEAM Cramer’s ultimate goal … knock ISTEP out of the park, just like the Cubs 2016 Championship Team!

Now that ISTEP is over Ms. Cramer’s students will get the reward, surprise and field trip of a lifetime by traveling to the real Wrigley Field and see the World Series Champions play in person!

Through the family member of a friend of Ms. Cramer’s, Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts himself found out about Ms. Cramer’s ingenious way to motivate her class. He was so impressed that he arranged to treat “Coach Cramer” and her “players” to experience the magic of Wrigley Field!

The students will tour Wrigley before the start of the 1:20 p.m. CT (2:20 p.m. EDT) Cubs vs. Dodgers game.