Field Trip Tips for Safe, Fun Learning Success

New teachers might naively think that field trips are easier and more fun than a typical day in the classroom. But throw in crises like a lost group of children or wasp stings, and field trips can go from fun to frantic in no time. But if you adjust your expectations you can come up with a new, more practical way to approach field trips and minimize the chances of drama and mayhem. Tips for a Successful Field Trip Follow these field trip tips and youll likely create fun learning adventures for your students: Explicitly discuss field trip behavior rules with your students beforehand. Teach, model, and review appropriate field trip behavior with your students for at least a week before the big event. Drill into their heads that field trips are not the time or place to mess around and that any aberrant behavior will result in non-participation in any future field trips that school year. Sound serious and back it up with consequences as needed. Its good to have your students scared of testing the boundaries on field trips. Emphasize that they are representing our schools reputation when they are off-campus and that we want to present our best behavior to the outside world. Make it a point of pride and reward them afterward for a job well done.Give your students a learning task ahead of time. Your students should show up for the field trip with a base of knowledge on the subject at hand, as well as questions to answer before returning to the classroom. Spend some time in the weeks before the field trip discussing the subject matter. Review a list of questions they will be looking to answer during the field trip. This will keep them informed, engaged, and focused on learning all day long.Choose parent chaperones wisely. Field trips require as many adult eyes and ears as you can get, but unfortunately, you cant be everywhere at once. From the first day of school, observe the parents of your students closely, looking for signs of responsibility, firmness, and maturity. A lax or careless parent can be your worst nightmare on a field trip, so choose your parental allies wisely. That way, youll reap the benefits of having adult partners in the field trip process.Make sure you have all the necessary medications. Talk to the school nurse and procure any and all medications that your students usually take during the day. While on the field trip, make sure you administer the medications accordingly. If you have students will allergies, you may need to get trained on how to use an EpiPen. If so, the student involved will need to stay with you at all times.Arrive at school early on field trip day. The students will be excited and antsy, ready to go. Youll want to greet the chaperones and give them instructions for the day. It takes some time to organize the sack lunches and ensure that everyone has what they need for the day. And one last pep talk on appropriate behavior never hurt anybody.Give your chaperones the tools they need to succeed. Make nametags for all chaperones and students. Create a cheat sheet of the days itinerary, special rules, your cell phone number, and the names of all kids in each chaperones group; distribute these sheets to each adult on the field trip. Procure and label grocery bags that each chaperone can use to carry the groups sack lunches. Consider getting a little thank-you gift for each chaperone, or treat them to lunch that day.Be proactive with regards to challenging students. If you have a student who causes trouble regularly in the classroom, its safe to assume he or she will cause at least five times more trouble in public. If possible, ask his or her parent to be a chaperone. That will usually limit any potential problems. Also, when you are making groups, split any problem pairs into separate groups. This is a good policy for troublemakers, chatty kids, or bickering frenemies. And its probably best to keep the most challenging students in your own group, rather than pawning them off on an unsuspecting parent chaperone.Count all day. As the teacher, you will likely spend most of your day counting heads and making sure everyone is accounted for. Obviously, the worst thing that can occur on a field trip is losing a student. So count accurately and often. Enlist the help of chaperones in this task, but do it yourself too, for your own peace of mind. Keeping track of each and every student is the number one priority of field trip day.Do a debriefing when you return to the classroom. If you have a few extr a minutes after the field trip and before dismissal from school, put on some soothing classical music and have the students draw about what they saw and learned that day. It gives them a chance to decompress and review what they experienced. The next day, its a good idea to do a more active and in-depth review of the field trip material, extending the learning further and connecting it to what youre working on in the classroom.Write thank-you notes after the field trip. Lead a class language arts lesson the day after your field trip, formally thanking the people who hosted your group. This serves as an etiquette lesson for your students and helps form your schools good reputation at the field trip destination. In future years, this goodwill could translate into prime perks for your school. With proper planning and a positive attitude, field trips can be unique ways to explore the outside world with your students. Stay flexible and always have a Plan B, and you should do just fine.