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Field trips today went well.


We ended up consolidating drivers since we had so many adults that wanted to chaperone.  It was nice to have an adult to talk to on the ride down and back. 


The petroglyphs were cool.  I had the hardest time getting my GPS to find the address of the petroglyphs.  It kept saying the road didn't exist!  Finally I used my computer to find the streets, then found the spot on the GPS map that matched so I could add the random spot as the petroglyph site.  Whew!  We found it okay though.  No troubles caravanning.  The kids mostly thought it was interesting.  I had one student who was bored and decided it was okay for him to wander around.  Then when I tried to get him to come back and stand with the class he shouted defensively, "I'm not doing anything!"  Yeah, I never said you were doing anything; I just want you to be with the class, even if you think it's boring.  Sigh. 


Good Shepherd Lutheran School was also there on a field trip.  Some of their students play basketball with our team, so our classes know each other.  They got there a little earlier than us and were in a different tour group, but we ate lunch at the same time in the same place. 


And then it was on to the farm!  Woohoo!  Oh they were so excited! A little disappointed a cow wasn't having a baby.  But they had fun petting the baby calf and the cats in the haymow (and holding the kittens).  They thought the birds were cool (one particular student wanted to bring an egg home with her).  A few of them collected feathers they'd found on the ground.  And the baby chicks and duck were a huge hit.  We didn't see many of the peacocks (we were on the way back to school when I realized we hadn't found the white peacock! ugh! Dad even said where it was, and they were so excited about bale tag that I forgot to look for it when we walked past).  Oh well.  Next year.  Maybe. 


The red tractors were out in full force.  And my John Deere lovers definitely noticed.  My students got to meet Dad, and even Grandpa came out to the farm to meet the class.  Bale tag was definitely the highlight of the trip.  They kept begging for one more round, one more round.  But we had to get back to school.  Angel was also up there on the trip highlights list (a 6th grader who'd been on the trip last year said, "I can't believe that dog is still alive!" he was very excited to see her again).


Everyone was tired out after bale tag.  No one remembered to bring a water bottle, so they were all super thirsty.  On the ride back they kept asking if we could stop at a gas station and buy something to drink (only two of the five in my car had money to spend... I think they wanted to buy candy or pop). Nope. I held firm.


We were supposed to go on another field trip tomorrow, this time to Ft. Ridgely.  Due to the 100% chance of rain, wind, and mid-50s temperatures, Ft. Ridgely decided to cancel.  Looks like school as usual tomorrow.  Kind of a bummer, but they were pretty rowdy today on the ride back, so maybe staying "home" is a good idea.  This really messes up my balloon thing though.  We were supposed to do "watch a cannon being fired", but that's not going to happen.  Maybe we'll just have a day off??? I don't think that will go over well either.  Maybe I'll switch some things around... we could do "paper airplane flying contest" for science and something else the day I planned that activity.  Now, the question is, do I reprint the new activities (and blow up new balloons/pop the old ones) or just verbally tell them.  Verbally would be less work.  Or I could renumber the balloons.  Something to sleep on, I think.