get creative- field trips

As we prepare to say goodbye to the students we have been with four hours a week for the past year, our classroom is keeping quite busy. It seems like we are trying to fit in a million things before we say our farewells. Last week I taught a math lesson and this week I am going with them to third grade camp! Then the final week of field placement we are going to plant a tree at the Governor's mansion. As I think back to my elementary days, I do not remember nearly as many field trips. My students have also been to the zoo for an entire week as well as went to a rock and mineral show so they are quite the busy class. Plus they still have a field trip in June! They're going to Greenfield Village.

You may be thinking how does this school possibly have funds to support all of this? Well they don't. Many of the field trips have taken a great deal of work trying to come up with ways to pay for these places and find transportation. For the week long field trip to the zoo the class sold cookie dough and the class also received grant money. The Governor also recently invited the class to plant a tree but they ran into problems because they did not have transportation. One of the students mom works for a buss company and offered her services to drive us there and back but we still needed a buss so my CT had five students write letters to the buss company and it worked! The student letters turned out great and after some hard work and multiple drafts they received a buss!

Now that schools are cutting a great deal on costs it's important for us as teachers to get creative with ways to fund and support outside of school learning. My CT says that she "moves her classroom" and students do truly learn so much from these experiences!