I have had the opportunity to go on a field trip with each of my placements: 4th grade went to the Nashville Symphony and kindergarten went to see Cat in the Hat at the Nashville Children's Theater. I was nervous about both of these, because the teachers at both schools seemed to slightly dread the field trips ("dread" is probably a strong word, but they kept saying how exhausting field trips are), and I just imagined that any field trip would be complete chaos. However, I thought that both trips went pretty seamlessly. The Symphony and the Children's Theater both clearly have field trips visit often, because they had systems in place to make sure we were in and out efficiently. In both cases, we loaded the buses quickly at school, went straight into the building, got seated quickly, boarded the buses immediately after the show was over, and then came back to school for lunch. There was, in fact, very little chaos and I thought they both ran like a well-oiled machine.
Have y'all gone on field trips with your placements? How were they?
I haven't gotten to go on one yet, but I get to go to the zoo on the 29th as one of my observations. It is so crazy to see the difference in emotions towards the field trips between the students and the teachers. On one hand, I can remember getting super excited and loving not being in school. But now, I can see the thought and planning that go into them. Also, I can see how a teacher would turn away from field trips.
ReplyDeleteAt the zoo, there is a giant playground (for those of you who don't know). Apparently it is like the Bermuda triangle. Kids go in and never come out. In past years, the teachers let the students play, but they were guaranteed at least one lost child. This year, they thought it out and nixed the whole playground idea. I am excited to see how it goes and am also excited to be walking around the zoo with my own group of kids! Hope it turns out as well as yours did.
I agree! It seemed like all the teachers were really not looking forward to our field trip, and my mentor teacher advised me to not plan any lessons after field trip because the students would be exhausted. For the most part, the field trip itself was totally fine, but she was right about the students being exhausted after. We ended up watching a movie for most of the afternoon and discussing the similarities and differences between the movie and the play. Even if the trip doesn't actually take the whole day, it certainly takes over a whole day! Although it is stressful to be a teacher responsible for the students out in public, the students all seemed really excited and for the most part, everyone was very well behaved!
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