Thursday, October 16, 2008

Making field trips meaningful


Today our first graders visited MOSH (Museum of Science and History). We have been on this field trip for many years. When we got there I was very happy to see that they had added a whole new Force and Motion section because we are currently working on that in our Science standards. But the one thing that I hate about this trip is that there are always so many, many students there. We have about 220 first graders there ourselves. I worry the kids never get enough out of it because they have to share the space with so many other children. Do they hear all the cool information when they press the button? Did they get to try all the neat science tools? Did they get to see everything there?

Today I was put back into the mind of a 6 year old as I was reminded that they don't care that there are tons of kids all around. They don't care that it is loud. They don't mind that they didn't get to see EVERYTHING. Today, I was reminded that they enjoy just being able to see new things, learn new information about ANYTHING, and are excited by just being there. For many of our students this year, this was their first time being to MOSH. They were so excited to see all the great things they have - like the skeletons of people and manatees. We ate lunch with our friends at Friendship Fountain and played vocabulary games while we ate. We shared our food with our friends.

They had a wonderful time with their classmates and learned something new. This was a meaningful field trip!

2 comments:

Rachel Bridges said...

It is so cool how the forces and motion piece to the MOSH aligned with what the students have been learning. It sounds like a wonderful time :).

Anonymous said...

My field trip was fun because there was alot to do. We took pictures and played games. We looked at animals but
couldn't pet them. see you in class.