Field Trips

It’s nearly time for summer and summer in childcare means taking the children out into the world, and those worldly jaunts are called field trips. Summer is a great time to travel because the weather is good, and the busses are free of school year schedules, and the kids are tired of indoor activities and craving adventure.

Finding a driver you can rely on is one of the most important parts of field tripping. We have had the same driver for as long as we’ve been in business. Miss Sandy is a regular school bus driver with her own bus. She wears our school shirt and sweater and of course she is included in all that we do. We truly regard her as one of our school team.

Establishing a policy for field trips is not a single decision. It has to be a united front because pulling off field trips with forty children is not easy if the staff is slack. Deciding on what to do and where to go should be a whole group decision. It’s something we talk about non stop.

The questions from new staff are always the same. Can trips be short and purely recreational like other places? Why are ours longer and adventurous and is an educational bend necessary?

Personally, I think all activities should teach. Kids have fun learning, so combining play and learning is always a winning combination. When you ask a new teacher if she would rather play Putt Putt with forty children or go to Mammoth Cave, the response is usually the same: Wow, I’ve never been to the cave.

The staff agrees, so we combine adventure, play and learning.

This year we have decided to go to:

Mammoth Cave in Southwestern Kentucky
The St. Louis Zoo in Missouri
Garden of the Gods in Southwestern Illinois
Lincoln’s Boyhood Home in Indiana
The restored village at Spring Mill Park in central Indiana or the Science Museum in Tennessee
Ellis Park in Kentucky
The Blue Angel’s practice and a tour and lunch out in Evansville
TBA

Behavior is a real consideration of travel. A non cohesive, poorly structured group is not only dangerous to themselves, it’s just too much to handle. Taking a disruptive, disobedient child on a six hour bus ride two states away who will not obey or stay with the group is more than can be expected of any staff. Consequently, these children will not go. Field trips are earned.

When a group is cohesive, well trained, obedient in every respect, they will have the time of their lives traveling and picnicking and seeing neat stuff all summer.

Why are field trips so important? Travel is a major learning experience. The travel alone teaches children about distances, and differences and community. It teaches trust and independence. There’s a lot of growing up in travel. The cave tour we take our kids on is a 2.5 hour deep cave climb with over 300 steps down. Mammoth Cave is the largest cave in the whole world. When we ask the kids how many have seen it, few have. Our three to seven year olds love the experience of spelunking from the start. Just talking about it has every child’s attention.

We will be seeing the seal show at the St. Louis Zoo in addition to the zoo. Few children have the opportunity to see a Sea World show, and this will give them the chance. We will picnic under the arch that day.

How much does all this cost? About $3000.00, and it’s worth every penny. In addition to the long and shorter trips, our school takes children swimming at least twice a week to a lovely community pool one town over with a Fortress of Fun right next to it.

Where does the money come from? Our school asks parents for a $100.00 field trip fee once a year to off set the cost of travel. Each bus excursion is at least $65.00. The longer ones cost closer to $600.00. With the cost of tickets, gas, lunch, driver, etc, it can be very expensive, but the cost never out weighs the experience.

Preparing and taking food is always tricky. We’ve tried everything imaginable, and what we’ve found is that children will eat hamburger bun sandwiches better than anything else. We make peanut butter and honey, cheese, ham and cheese, egg salad, tuna salad, and sometimes bologna. We’ve tried cream cheese and jelly and ham salad, but the kids were reluctant to eat it. For teachers and parents who come, we always make a chicken salad to die for. Edith and I bring our coffee carafe, and we take water to drink.

We take a watermelon, apples, chips, homemade cookies, pickles, carrots and dip. If we leave early, we have to take breakfast. If we come back late, we stop for ice cream if the kids are not too tired.

Why, people ask us, would you do all this work when other places just let the kids play? When you know your school children well enough to love them as much as we do, it’s just plain fun.

So what’s next?

MMMM, I’m still thinking about that goat, maybe a pony, maybe an elephant!