Field Twip!

Today I went on the 7th grade field trip to the Newseum. It's a good thing I had been before since I didn't really have time to look at any exhibits; I was too preoccupied making sure I had all the kids I was supposed to have. The social studies teacher who organized it was crazy organized-- all chaperons had a quick meeting Wednesday to get the rules, necessary materials and a list of which kids were assigned to whom; these lists were posted along the 7th grade hallway so the students could quickly find their chaperon when we all met in the theater this morning; each chaperon was given enough packets of scavenger hunts, which the students fill out for a grade, which was fantastic, because it gave them purposeful things to look for in the museum instead of meandering around. (Wow, that was a long sentence...) And even though they were filling out paperwork, the students really enjoyed themselves. There were a few exhibits they genuinely wanted to go to, and looked for where information was even after they were given the answer from a friend. It was a bit of a clusterf*** when we returned, because the students were supposed to go to seventh period, but one bus was late, and the aides were sent to fill in. I ended up going to the 7th grade English teacher's room (where I am during 6th period), where two other on-call subs were also sent. But eventually we figured it out, and the classroom teacher showed up about 10 minutes later. I handed out folders I knew they were working on, but they weren't really doing any work, and Ms. S. & I didn't really expect them to-- it was after a field trip on a Friday during last period. We basically just calmed them down when they got too rowdy. I didn't need to be there, but it was actually a nice break from my regular 7th period. And the field trip went extremely smoothly. I knew two of the 10 kids in my group before today, but now I can 8 more students to my name-to-a-face list. Hooray for Fridays!