Tuesday, October 07, 2008

oh fieldtrips!

today i sent my students on a very strange fieldtrip. this was a fieldtrip that "the grade 3 classes do" which is typical of the big school mentality...but i like it. this fieldtrip however was QUITE the planning. it was a car rally.

the car rally was in conjunction with the conclusion of our Mapping unit. the kids had to find their way around langley finding 5 different checkpoints. i'd made clues with the help of google maps from one house to the next. when they got to a checkpoint, someone would give them the clue to the next place. they would direct their parent driver to the next spot.

the reason it was strange - i didn't have to go. i stayed at the school! i had my cell phone and checkpoint parents were to call when all the cars had come by and driver parents were to call if anything went wrong. i got SO much marking done.

so after all my google mapping work, it turned out one clue was wrong. shoot. only a couple cars ended up making it to that checkpoint. the others skipped it since i'd give the drivers a master set of clues.

one checkpoint was TWU (where tim works) and the kids had to go into the building, ask where Mr. Shulba worked, and find his office to get their next clue. they were SO jazzed about meeting Mr. Shulba. tim called me when they'd all come by and said that there had been one huge group of about 17 and then a little group of 3. i asked him if they'd been quiet and polite and he reported that they HAD! yay.

the final report? one mom said that the kids in her car figured out that the numbers on the houses on one side of the street are even and the other are odd. another mom kept her kids on task by yelling, "hey! look at that!" every so often. one mom told me that as her group was walking into tim's building, the kids coming out were saying, "mr. shulba is so cute and nice."

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I'd have to agree...that Mr. Shulba is definitely both cute and nice.

Fantastic idea for a field trip, Mrs. Shulba! I'll bet Judy is so proud! You should do a "hiking" trip (scaled to grade 3 level) and include caching - Judy could co-facilitate!

Anonymous said...

yes.. I WOULD love that therachel -- in fact, I co-facilitated the "Amazing GPS Race" amongst our fellow PPAC staff.. it included GPS waypoints and a digital camera and a time limit.. AND they had to be at the final waypoint no earlier or no later than a certain time, or they got points deducted.. Very fun to plan!!! This is a call out to any TV producers out there that may want to use this as a reality show :) I'm open for serious negotiations!

Anonymous said...

i wanna do grade 3 over again with you mrs. shulba...AWESOME IDEA!

Katie Marie said...

Sounds like a lot of fun, Bec! What a great idea to get them to go to Trinity to meet Tim! That would be SO exciting for grade 3s. Only 3 more days until the wedding! Can you believe that?! It's been almost exactly 4 years since your wedding! Time flies, doesn't it? I'm glad your Mom got her shoes, finally. I saw them - they look great! Can't wait to see you! Enjoy the rest of your week!

Unknown said...

Fun field trip... and meeting Mr Shulba would definitely have been a huge highlight for grade 3... almost like meeting a celebrity. Remember how weird it used to seem that teachers had lives outside of school?

Unknown said...

Oops... I'm signed in as James... but that was Alyssa!

Sharelle said...

oh wow.
in comparison to this post, my french revolution test is looking pretty bleak for tommorow morning.

way to make the rest of us look bad. kidding!

you are rocking it my friend.
and now, if only i could :)

Anonymous said...

I'm waiting for a picture of thanksgiving! What a crazy weekend you had! I'm very proud! Wish I could have been there!