I'm taking my kindergartners on their first field trip tomorrow. We're going to "The School Forest", a lovely patch of oak savannah about 25 miles out of town that our district has owned for 50 years. Before sending them home today, we had a talk about it, because I wanted to make sure that they all come dressed appropriately, etc. Here is how our conversation went:"Remember, we're going on our field trip tomorrow."
"Yay! We're going to the pumpkin patch!"
"The pumpkin patch! Yay!"
"No, we're not going to the pumpkin patch. We're going to a forest. When you come to school tomorrow we're going to get on a bus --"
"I no ride the bus!!"
"Yes, all of us get to ride the bus tomorrow. We're going to ride for a little while and then we won't be in the city anymore. We'll be in the country, in a place with lots of trees ..."
"Will we ever come back to America again?"
"We're not leaving America! We'll be back at school in time to eat lunch. And I want everybody to bring a sweatshirt--"
"And sweat pants."
"You don't need sweat pants, just plain old pants. It might be kind of chilly, so bring a sweatshirt--"
"And sweat pants."
"--and good shoes for walking, like sneakers."
"Are these sneakers?"
At this juncture I make a show of putting on my glasses and quickly "examine" everyone's shoes.
"Yup. Everyone just wear the shoes you're wearing right now."
Sometimes teaching kindergarten is like being in a Marx Brothers movie:
"2 hard-boiled eggs."
Honk!
"Make that 3 hard-boiled eggs."
But I love it.
10 comments:
I hope you remembered to warn them about the bears and mountain lions!
OMG, that's a fantastic story Suzy! I loved it and giggled but I could also appreciate your frustration. The leaving America bit was particularly funny.
Thank you for your amazing stories about your childhood Halloween. I loved them! I gobbled it up like the donuts and hot cocoa. There was a family who used to give away packages of hot chocolate and I thought that was the coolest thing but these ladies...they really knew how to do Halloween right.
I was also shocked that they no longer do Unicef anymore!
What a tale! I want to know how the trip goes.
Kindergarten bliss- with an amazing teacher!
I love it! What an amazing job you have. I hope the field trip was fun!
Kids are great arent they sometimes. The things that come out of there mouths.
Did you get a nice pumpkin?
I was so disappointed -- not a single pumpkin. The big fear factor thing was SNAKES. OMG, snakes??? Needless to say, we didn't see any, nor bears or mountain lions. It was a wonderful field trip, and I think the kids were enthralled. And we made it back by lunch. (The biggest excitement was passing the weinermobile on the highway.)
Remember a few years ago when we saw a guy get bitten by a snake at the School Forest? It was his own fault for trying to pick it up, but there was a lot of blood. Then he started to swell up and turn black and purple. It was pretty awful when his wind pipe swelled shut. Did you share that with your kindergarteners?
There're no snakes, the giant tarantulas ate them.
Ed, I remember that day. The guy bled like a stuck pig. I don't remember the part about him turning black and purple though. That must have happened when I went into the woods to pee.
Sorghum Crow, I can tell that you and my esteemed spouse have a similar sense of humor. I actually do have a student who has an obsession with tarantulas. Whenever we sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and I let him choose an animal to add to a verse, he always chooses a tarantula. Then we sing, "With a [wave your limbs around] here and a [wave your limbs around] there, here a [wave your limbs around], there a [wave your limbs around], Everywhere a [wave your limbs around] ..." It's a challenge for me to sing like a spider and play the guitar at the same time!
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