Interview with the Field Trip Teacher.
Why do you take kids on bus field trips?
Well...it's fun and educational. Kids love them. They start to develop a real sense of geography, it expands the size of their community, and they get to explore new places. A bus great place to play 'I notice', a very simple, yet, enriching game: 'I notice the door on the top. What is it?' It's a great place to start a conversation about safely, emergencies...etc. I also enjoy noticing the numbers on the digital display because I have a captive audience. The little angels are restricted to their seats: what numbers to you see? what numbers will you see when it changes? is that number a palindrome? ...What bus # are we riding? What's the stop ID? How many minutes until the bus comes? Now how many?
What do you bring on a field trip?
Today I went to a splash pad by the library with four kids. I brought 2 backpacks with:
4 towels
4 bathing suits (I wore mine!)
1 picnic blanket
5 water bottles
bars and fruit snack
sunscreen
hats for all
money
phone
medical kit
sanitizer
masks
library card
nuts and dried fruit snack
cards (just in case)
book (just in case)
What's the most challenging part of a field trip?
Timing. It can be quite hard to judge how much time it will take to get from one place to another, and in Oregon City, buses seem to run ONCE AND HOUR!!! So you don't want to miss it, and you don't want to have too much time to wait. But sometimes it takes 4 kids about 5 minutes to use the bathroom. But then other times, everyone suddenly needs to take a 10 minute poop! And then there are some expert dawdling dilly-dallyers. It's important to let kids take their time sometimes to stop and notice bugs on the sidewalk, their own shadows, or negotiate a 'game' with friends, but with a fixed schedule it takes a lot of subtle maneuvering. I usually I end up doing some rushing, and then some waiting. So far it has always worked out.
What if some kid misbehaves and becomes stubborn and defiant?
That's the beauty of a field trip on a public bus: they don't. They save such behaviors for school and home.
Is there such a thing as a 'field trip hangover'?
Oh yes. That's a real thing. For all of us. Having a bus adventure can be exhausting, and it's a good idea to make the following day as mellow as possible.
But is preschool ever mellow?
Well...nope!!!
(the weird cartoon and wooden head sculpture slipped in from Joel's phone from somewhere in Iowa and I don't know how to remove them)