Plan, Plan, Plan, and Plan Some More

As noted before, I teach Kindergarten at Brook Avenue Elementary. Yesterday was the next to last day before the Christmas holidays. It was also the day of our Christmas Field Trip. For Kindergartners, field trips are pretty big deals. It's like the whole reason some come to school. After all, some of our children do not get to experience a lot outside their neighborhood. When I tell my class about the upcoming field trip they all think they will be going the next day. This continues for a week or two. Then they begin to forget about it until you send permission slips home. Then it starts all over again. The next day you hear something like this, "Are we going on the field trip today?" I say, "No, that is next week."

We teachers plan and prepare for our field trips well in advance. Especially since it is so important to the children that the trips occur without any problems. Yesterday's field trip was no different. Our trip was planned on, submitted, budgeted for, and approved in September. GREAT. No problems in store for this group come field trip day. We would be going to Cameron Park and then to the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University for their Christmas Around the World activities. GREAT!

Our planned itinerary for the trip went something like this:

9:00 AM - Buses arrive. Children board buses and we leave for Cameron Park.
9:10 AM - We arrive at park and children exit buses for playground. This is the day they get to run and play as reward for all their hard work up till now.
10:15 AM - Teachers prepare for picnic lunch.
10:30 AM - Time for lunch. After lunch children get to play, go to restroom, and get a drink of water.
11:30 AM - Buses arrive for loading and transport to the Mayborn.
11:45 AM - Arrive at the Mayborn for the exhibits.
2:15 PM - Load buses and make our triumphant return to school after a successful field trip.

No Problems!

Actual day of the field trip:

9:00 AM - Buses arrive for loading and the students are ready to board. We go to the buses. Bus drivers tell us that one bus is for 3rd grade, the other is for 4th. Oh! Go call to get this straightened out.
9:15 AM - Bus drivers are satisfied that Kindergarten can go on field trip and load bus. The other bus it turns out is for 3rd grade. They too are going on the same field trip, except in reverse order.
9:20 AM - Preparing to leave and the driver mentions that she will be taking us to the Mayborn. NO! We are supposed to go to Cameron Park. Bus driver has to call to get this new wrinkle straightened out.
9:30 AM - Bus driver returns. Trip to Cameron Park is OK. BUT....that means we will need the bus all day and we will have to pay extra for the bus. It seems they thought we would only be gone 1/2 day. We leave for the park.
9:32 AM - As we head to the park the children start to sing. There were 3 distinct groups singing. Their favorites were "The Wheels On the Bus", "Jingle Bells", and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". They sounded like this, "The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go...Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in...a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him you would even say it glows. When all the other reindeer saw him, they would...go round and round, round and round, round and round." It was great.
9:40 AM - Arrive at park. We need our coats since the weather is cool. Children run and play.
10:15 AM - Teachers prepare for lunch.
10:30 AM - Lunch. Then you hear from the children, "We are going to eat on the ground?", "I don't want to.", "I'm not hungry.", "I want to play." and so forth.
11:15 AM - Bus arrives early, children want to get on bus but can't. The bus is early and we get to the museum early. A few minutes later we get on bus anyway and head to museum.
11:35 AM - We arrive at museum early. The weather is warming so we leave the coats on the bus then the bus driver tells us that she will be leaving and we have to take everything with us. A different bus will pick us up and take us back. So we take our coats, ice chests , and boxes into the museum. They are not ready for us because we are early. We walk around the grounds until they are ready.
11:50 AM - Let the festivities begin. The museum was great and fun was had by one and all.
2:30 PM - We board our bus for the return trip. We are tired. No singing now. The bus driver has not been to our school before. He gets lost and we get a tour of the neighborhood. He asks directions and we arrive safely back at school at 2:50 PM. Dismissal is at 3:00 PM.

We all survived thanks to the advance planning and unerring execution of that plan! "Yeah, right!"


© 2007 Barry T Horst



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