Let's get ready to go on a field trip!

"One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen."   Nelson Mandela

Preparation. Preparation is one of the key elements that will help to determine the success of a field trip adventure. If teachers are not prepared, if and when a situation arises, it could end up being chaotic and a sheer disaster. There are so many things that can derail a field trip from the intended educational outcome. As teachers we are responsible for all of our students, and thinking "What could really go wrong?" will not be beneficial to either student or teacher. Preparation.....

Found on Google Images

     After we went on the field trip to Bailly-Chellberg Homesead, we came back and had a discussion about field trips. We discussed how to prepare our students for field trips, what procedures must be in place to ensure the safety of our students, how to get students familiar with the content of the field trip, how to engage them when on the field trip, and extension activities after returning to the classroom. 

As a class, we brainstormed and thought of the many different things that teachers have to do to have a successful field trip. We compiled lists of things to think about. We started by discussing how we can get students ready for what the field trip is for or about, and what it is we really want them to "get out of it?"

~Get Kids Ready~ 

Ask questions

(Has anyone ever been there before?

What do you know about it?)

Create charts 

(KWL)

Cover the content

Make inferences

(If about pioneers...how life was, what was different, etc.)

Teach specific vocabulary

Watch videos

Read books

Give students specific or key things to look for

We decided that part of being prepared is 

~Knowing your students~

 Specific medications

Allergies

 Asthma

Fears

Behavioral issues (disorders, etc.)

Disabilities

Diabetic

Emergency contacts

Appropriate grouping strategies

Who is likely to "try to run"

Who will be helpful

Who's parents can and would be chaperons

~Field Trip Necessities~

Permission Slips

First Aid Kit/Back Pack

CPR Certified

Chaperons (trained)

Map

Sunblock

Bug Spray

Food

Water

Cell Phone

Camera

Appropriate Clothing

Emergency Contact/bags

Something Sweet

Student Medications

Nurse (if possible)

~Things to Think About~

Chaperons (Who)

Method of keeping track of everyone

Go to meeting place if separated

Discussing behavioral expectations

Built in restroom breaks

Things beyond our control (mosquitoes, bees, weather, etc.)

Students without requirements 

(sack lunches, weather appropriate clothing, field trip fees, etc.)

~Discussion/Extension Activities~

What did we learn?

What did we see?

What did you like, dislike?

How was it different?

What questions do you have?

Research questions

Found Art Projects

      We discussed how to engage students during the field trip by giving them specific things to look for. There are many activities that teachers can do to get students involved and engaged during the field trip. They can participate in scavenger hunts and observations. They could be looking for an answer to a predetermined question that is given before the field trip. 

Click on the links below for Field Trip Resources

Field Trip Resource!

Freebies!

Field Trip Report Freebie

     Field trips are meant to be fun and educational. They are a fabulous way to reinforce a classroom concept, as well as tie into other subjects. It is a way to give students a concrete experience for sometimes abstract ideas.

An example of how one field trip can be used to integrate all subjects is....maybe taking students to a pumpkin patch in the fall. This field trip could be tied into Science and the life cycle of a pumpkin, or Home Economics,  cooking pumpkin pie and other such goodies. It could be tied into Social Studies with wants and needs, goods and services, producers and consumers, etc. It could be tied into Math with the price of pumpkins, the weight, the amount of pumpkins there are. Reading is another subject that could be integrated into this field trip, stories can be pre-read, poems can be written, student writing pieces can be written and published; Art activities, pumpkin painting, drawing, etc. There are sooooooo many ways this particular field trip could be integrated.

There are so many ways field trips can be beneficial to students to help reinforce what they are learning, or be a prelude to what they will be learning. Careful planning and consideration are key elements in the success of any field trip.  The quote below couldn't be more true.....

IT'S A FIELD TRIP!!!

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."                                                                Dr. Seuss 

With that being said.......

Quote found on pinterest.com

Field trips are great! They are a fabulous way to experience what you are learning about. 

     Our class had the opportunity to take a field trip to Michigan City to visit a homestead that was a working farm over one hundred years ago. We embarked on a journey to Bailly-Chellberg Homestead.

   It was a great day and we learned and saw many things, including that our GPS could be set to "Boy Band" and sing us the directions! We carpooled for the trip over. This leg of the journey is always so much fun with this group!

Our trusty driver Mike and his 'boy band' gps, with Krystle and Lynnette....

Clare and Krystle cheesin' it up....

and Maria and Jeni flashing their 'orbit smiles'...

The first half of our field trip, we had a guide that took us through many outbuildings including a fur trappers storage house.... and explained about how life was back then. We were able to tour these cabins, homes and outbuildings.

Our fearless guide, Kelly, Steph, Syd and Krystle are paying close attention...

Some of us really jumped into that time and really got a "feel" for what it might have been like........

Mike and Lynnette...Checking things out from a different perspective....

And some of us were a wee bit skittish about the very steep stairs in this cabin....

Steph....being so brave....

But, if you really look at those steep, steep stairs, it is easy to see why Steph may have been slightly nervous...I know I was....take a peek.....

The oh so uncomfortable feeling of falling forever was at my minds forefront....

Explored a little more....

Then we took a walk through the woods following a gorgeous path.

Randy and Mike

 Nature was abundant and it was a beautiful day!  "Look Steph...more stairs!! LOL

Part of our gorgeous walk, it couldn't have been a better day for this walk....

We had to stop and investigate, snap a picture or two...

Wendy and Clare...I wonder what she sees?

There was so much nature, and when the time is taken to enjoy your surroundings, there is so much magic in nature that so often goes unnoticed.....Do you see it? It's an enchanted place.....

Look closely.....

....use your imagination. A picture like this would make a fabulous writing prompt.....

A perfect little home for fairy's is found off of the beaten path
 on its own little circle of moss. Can you imagine?
These little toadstools were so tiny....

And then some of us really got into it and looked very close...and gained a different perspective with a "worms eye view...."

...and that would be Clare. (Do you think she found the fairy homes?)
Kelly looks like she is saying "Shut up! You did not just do that!"
Hahaha...we know each other so well...

Along the way, were more old buildings from the homestead....How interesting....

And then the path opened up into a beautiful meadow, and there was .....

It was really fun to see as well as imagine how they lived so long ago. What we take for granted, such as running water would have been considered a luxury...

After touring the inside, it was time to go outside.

Maria patiently awaits....

 This place is so peaceful and so beautiful...I know I would be very happy and content to if this was where I could call my home.

After poking around outside, and taking some more pictures, it was time to take another walk to the family cemetery where we would all sit down for a picnic. 

The Catalpa Tree!

Syd, our fearless fearless leader ;)

Lynnette, Mike (with his eyes closed), Kelly and Krystle

     I was simply amazed when we got to the family cemetery. There were no upright grave stones any longer, but there was a raised square that was huge. You had to walk up the steps and it was covered in soft grass with this beautiful wooden cross in the very center. There was a concrete walkway all around the perimeter and around the cross. It was absolutely gorgeous..... 

So many ways to learn....

"Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways......."

                                                                                                 Howard Gardner

Diversity: The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences.  Definition found at http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~asuomca/diversityinit/definition.html

Block 3~Each one of us is different. 

     Look at the picture above. This is our Social Studies class. Each of us is different. We do not all have the same gloves, our skin tones are different, the size of our hands are different, and each one of us learn in a different way. Some of us may learn in similar ways to another, but each one has their own unique style of learning. Each one of us will have our own unique style of teaching, and each one of us is learning about reaching all of our students by being creative teachers. 

Found on thehuffingtonpost.com

By being creative teachers, we are setting our students up for success.........

     We learned about Gardner's Multiple Intelligences during one of our first classes in Social Studies. As with the Cultural Backpack, students learn in many diverse ways. Because of this, it is conducive and beneficial that we know how to teach in many diverse ways. 

     Isn't that what one of the definitions of creativity is? To think outside of the box? Why then, would we as teachers choose to teach only inside of the box when we have alot of students that are.................

So with so many students learning outside of the box because they learn in diverse ways, it only seems logical that teachers should teach outside of the box to try and reach all of our diverse learners. 

Dare to be that teacher!

 Below is a picture explaining Howard Gardner's Theory  of Multiple Intelligences. 

Chart found on thedailyomnivore.net

There are nine different intellegences according to Gardner. Which I translate to mean that there are nine different ways people learn the best according to their strengths. 

What are your strengths? Which intelligence(s) are you? To take a quick test to find out, click on the link.

http://www.literacynet.org/mi/assessment/findyourstrengths.html

Our class took a test to determine what our strengths are and which intellegence(s) we were the strongest.

     My strongest intelligences are Interpersonal, Kinesthetic and Verbal. This makes total sense to me as I am a hands on learner, I am keenly aware of others around me and I am quite the chatty gal, as well as love to write.

     It would be fun as well as beneficial I think to conduct this type of test in my own classroom. It would help me to categorize which way students learn the best. This could greatly help me to modify or adapt my instruction to try to reach all of my students. 

  

It is up to us to find a way to teach our students in the ways that they learn the best. 

What's in Your Backpack?

"If you don't have any baggage                                                       then you don't have a pulse."                                                                              Ilyana Vanzant                         

I wonder.......

     Who are you? What are you carrying with you in your backpack. Where did you come from? What made you the person you are today? What defined you as a person, and did it really define you?

     In one of our very first Social Studies class, we did a Cultural Backpack activity. This activity consisted of each of us taking some time to think about what we carried around that is not always apparent to everyone else. We were asked to think back to our childhood, and try and remember who we were at that time. We specifically were asked to answer the question.....

Who was your 5th grade self?

     We were to come to the next class loaded with an outline of who we were in 5th grade. It was to be a simple bullet outline using key words that described who we were at that time. We were given an outline of a backpack as a visual to use and told we could make our list directly on the outline if we wished, as we could ask our 5th grade students to do.

Again, easy task right? Again, wrong answer.

     We knew that once this outline was finished, we would be asked to write it on the board for the entire class to view....and possibly judge.....That alone evoked feelings of vulnerability in myself. My classmates, who have become my very good friends, know only what I have chosen to let them know about me. Some more than others, but mainly they know the current "me" and not who I was in my past. No one, however knew who my 5th grade self was. (Even I had trouble remembering that far back. It was a challenge to put myself back in my 5th grade mind and remember.)

     Below is a snapshot of my Cultural Backpack, which is next to my friend Krystle's. It is easy to see that we are different, and each of us have very different things in our backpacks that we carried around with us throughout our school years. These backpack lists are only a snippet from our 5th grade selves.

     Again, the assignment hit pay dirt! The mission of teaching us preservice teachers to "think outside of the box," paid off. As we went around the room and viewed all of each others backpacks, we were amazed at what we found. Our classroom environment was established as a safe and supportive environment. It was clear to see this as we divulged a lot of our pasts that a lot of us did not know about, yet not one of us judged who we are now, and who we were in 5th grade. 

     I had not really thought about all that was happening in my life when I was in 5th grade. In reflection, I remember being judged by some of my teachers, not only in elementary, but in my high school as well. I was prejudged according to who my family was and what those before me had done. I remember hearing more than once in a discouraged and resigned tone "Oh, you're related to....? Oh....your brothers are Guy and Doug? Who are your cousins? etc...... I even heard "If you think I am going to put up with....like I did with your brothers and cousins...." Geesh, I was not them, and I knew right then and there, at that moment that the rest of my school year would be defined before my new teacher even knew me. Great!

     As I got older, I began to say back with a big grin, "Yep, they sure are my cousins and brothers and I would not have it any other way." (slight defiance, but I was proud to be related.)

Retrieved from pinterest.com

     Those teachers who chose to prejudge are forever defined in my eyes as narrow minded. Even then, as a student, I knew I was being prejudged, which set not only the course of their actions, but then mine as well. 

     As teachers, this needs to be at the forefront of our minds. We do not know our students as individuals based on just what we see, and think we know, or what we know about those that came before them. Sometimes we will see a bright and shiny new backpack.......

And sometimes we will see torn and worn backpacks.....

     Regardless of the condition, there is still a child and a student that is wearing that backpack that deserves our respect. They deserve to be viewed and known for who they are, not what their baggage may be. But until I as the teacher unpacks that backpack, shiny and new, or worn and torn, I will not know the whole student. Until I take into consideration all that my student comes from, deals with, and all that my student is, I will not know my student. I will not know their beliefs, or traditions, or even their personality. 

     If I as a teacher am not willing to accept the diversity of my students and do not create that safe and supportive environment where they can thrive and grow, I am doing them a great disservice. If I can not accept who they are and celebrate their differences, I can not know them and therefore can not teach the whole student.