A mesh of two weeks

"I saw my brains"

Kids say the darnedest things... and as a Field Trip Coordinator and participant I have heard a lot of them over the past few weeks! The quote above is one of my favorites. When I asked the kids what they had seen in the woods, one of them decided he would be cool... roll his eyes back into his head... and say "I saw my brains." I have also been asked if convicts work at Calypso Farm, as well as told that jelly beans grow.

If you haven't guessed already, Field Trips have indeed started!! After weeks and weeks of figuring out the logistics of having kids come to the farm, they are finally arriving! This makes my job both ten times more enjoyable and exhausting. But the benefits definitely outweigh the complications. I love seeing the excited faces of the kids when they arrive here... well that is if they are kindergarten through 4th grade. After that it takes a little more effort to tease the excitement out of the students, but normally we get there pretty fast.

The field trips have been running a consistent hour and a half. When the kids arrive at the farm I am the first person to greet them. As they pile off the buses I gather them in front of me, and welcome them to Calypso. Normally I'll hear one or two emphatic "I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE!s" yelled at me. After greeting the kids and asking them to name the rules they should follow while on the field trip I play a game with them. The driveway at Calypso is pretty lengthy, so this game helps them to keep their energy going up the hill. What happens is, I ask the kids to tell me an animal they will see at Calypso. Some of the answer's I've gotten have been pretty good. One kid gave me a rooster, and another said a sparrow. More often then not though someone will inevitably say a sheep or a goat. So we "baaaahhh" on up to one of the volunteers, and they give the kids another animal to be, and so on and so forth until we've reached the top of the drive.

Then, after giving them a brief overview of the field trip, and introducing them to the volunteers, I bring them over to Tom for a goat milking demonstration. It is always hard to keep kids attention when there is obviously a very interesting animal standing right behind you. As I struggle to keep the kids attention they are always looking around me and whispering about the goats. Today I heard a lot of the kids exclaiming "There's a goat's butt in my face!!!" So, when I finally announce that we are going to see a milking demonstration they all get really excited and file right past me to gape at Tom's brilliant milking abilities. It is also great to see their reactions when they get the opportunity to actually try milking! Sometimes the groups are really excited and willing, other times they are super shy and then as soon as a couple of people volunteer everyone wants to get involved! But somehow the fact that a goat has only two teats, as opposed to the cow's four, is very alarming and sometimes disgusting.

After the kids are done milking the goats we brake out into different stations. In total I have four station options to choose from when I am planning for a field trip. Over the past month I've been working with the past field trip coordinator's materials and Tom's random suggestions to create stations for the spring field trip called "Spring on the Farm." What I have ended up with is a station that covers bees, a station for seeds and plants, a woods walk station, and of course an animal station. My favorites are the woods and the seeds station. I have had the most luck with these two so far. The bees are not hands on enough yet for me, and when running the animals station it is impossible to keep the kids' attention!

Then at the end of the field trip I try to wrap up by asking the kids if they've had fun, and what parts they liked the most. I was so proud today when almost everyone said "I LOVED EVERYTHING!" This is not to say that I haven't had a number of tough field trips. Last Friday in particular I had a group that I could not get energized, and by the end of almost every hour and a half field trip the kids start to get antsy and ask for snacks. I am not too phased by this behavior though. Every group is different, and I am constantly learning more tricks for keeping kids focused, from the school groups themselves and the volunteers who come to help me.

ps. there are new pictures posted