Today we went on a field trip to the St. John's Arboretum. This was an adventure! We did the morning routine and I worked with a couple of students before we started putting on all sorts of layers to go outside. All of the first grade classrooms were going, but once we got there we split into groups by teacher. It was fun to squish on to the bus, three to a seat, with all the 1st graders. Four parents came as volunteers, a school volunteer, Mrs. Hausmann and myself. When we got there we did a short group introduction and then split off with a guide from the Arboretum. It was the cutest thing to see these little kids try and trek through the snow. There was a small path, but it had been recently covered with snow. With the deep snow, sticks, logs and branches, the 1st graders definitely had a hard time walking. First we went exploring and all the kids went crazy trying to find animal tracks and homes. But then when it was time to regroup, the kids had to climb a very large hill to get back to the rest of the group. They were falling down and tired, so I started to grab them by the arms and pull a few up at a time. It was really funny because they just really could not climb this hill. Then we broke out into groups and used books to identify different animal tracks and droppings. The kids liked doing this. I was looking with a group of 5 boys and I had a difficult time keeping them together and focused. They found so many things to look at that once we found one thing, they didn't even pay attention to it, they just went on looking. We had to climb the hill once more and I carried a few kids up again. The worst was when they would lose their boots or mittens. This happened a lot and usually to the same child more than once. We'd have to get all the snow off of them and from the inside of the boot/mitten then squeeze it back on them.
Overall the field trip was really fun and it was interesting to see the students in a different environment.
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