Last night, I had a dream that I ran out of stickers for my graded papers. I know, crazy, right? I hardly ever dream of school, but I did last night and I was stressed over STICKERS! Really, I think I was just stressed with preparing grades for report cards and preparing for today's field trip.
Field trips always stress me out. I think I feel overwhelmed with taking the children out somewhere new, what if I lose one and what if they get hurt? It is funny how the children are so excited about the field trip, and I'm desperately trying to be excited for them, but deep down I'm a nervous wreck.
To help with some of the anxiety of the field trip, I stayed late on Thursday making sure everything I needed was put together, so I wasn't going crazy looking for them in the morning. I picked the outfit I was going to wear for today and had it ready on the edge of my bed. I had everything ready to make for an easy morning. I woke up this morning, got ready to go and headed out the door.
On my ride to school, I PASSED one of my students in their vehicle. (Passed is capitalized for a reason, this is important information that will come in handy, later.) I was thrown off guard, when Joseph's little sister started yelling, "HI, MS. J" and waving her arms to get my attention. I have heard my name called in a store, across a parking lot, and at a church, never have I heard my name while driving from another car.
I get to school and had a fight with the copy machine, unfortunately the copy machine won. The children enter the classroom at 8:00 and I warn them that I know they are excited about the field trip, but I'm stressed because I am worried about something happening and that we are not leaving until we finish our two tests and quiz. The children begin taking their normal Friday tests. We finish up in enough time to use the bathrooms before leaving.
I line the children up by their chaperone and count them twice before heading out to the bus. We get outside and the chaperones inform us, that the bus is not here. I reply, "He is probably running a few minutes late and will be here soon." Five minutes pass, there is not a bus in sight. Ten minutes, I call the student who is my teacher's aide, "Please ask Mrs. A if she can call the bus driver because he is not here." Mrs. A, is the third grade teacher who was also attending the field trip with us.
Mrs. A meets me outside and says, "The bus driver did not know he was driving us today."
Pause. Truly at a moment like this you are speechless, you kind of do the head shake with open mouth, meaning what are we going to do.
I bring my students back to class and we send for the principal of the school, who is currently in Mass with the other classes. Mrs. A and I begin tossing around the idea of carpooling over for the field trip. Mr. G comes down to our crazy mess, and agrees to let us carpool to the field trip. We sit the children in the hallway to match them with parents to carpool over and Mrs. A and I realize that we may be driving for this field trip.
"I can drive, but I have to stop for gas." I told her.
"J-E-S-T-I-N-E!" yells Mrs. A, her hands come flying up, so at this point I know she is stressed.
"I DIDN'T REALIZE WE WERE GOING TO HAVE TO DRIVE," I yelled back.
Mrs. A and I were not mad at each other, but just frustrated with the situation. We start placing children with parents for carpool and I have two student left. I go in my room to get my keys and cannot find them anywhere. Stressed beyond belief, I have two fourth graders helping, looking in their desks? One of the parents walks in the classroom and says they will put the back seats of their van up, so we can ride with him. We get in the van, I call the place we are visiting and let them know we are on our way, at this point I'm ready for my nap.
We arrive to our location and our greeted outdoors, the woman asks if we are ready to begin. My response was, "I don't know if all my students are here, I need to count them." All the children made it safely there and we begin out field trip. The children and chaperones start without me. Upon entering the building, I was told that someone called our field trip and asked to pay for the entire trip and the place we were visiting needed to know if that was okay. We were renting a bus from a local Catholic High School, who felt bad that the driver they hired for us, did not come, which was so sweet of them to do. Unsure of what the policy was, I ask Mrs. A. who also didn't know, so I called the school. Mr. G said that was fine, so thank you to the person who paid our classes, the children had a wonderful time.
I was now free to join my class for the rest of the field trip. After we were finished we went outside and had lunch in the pavilion. I must say I am addicted to www.weather.com, but that certainly did not prepare us for how chilly it would be outside. We had another location that we were to visit, but at this point, we decided just to arrive back to school early. Many of the parents did not know where the other place was, and we would be spending a lot of time outdoors in the cold.
While driving back, Joseph says, "Mr. S, I think you should have let Ms. J. drive."
Mr. S. asks, "Why is that?"
"Well, she could probably get us back to school a lot faster, she passed my mom on our way to school this morning."
So, if that wasn't embarrassing enough. We end up stopping at a traffic light, where Raphael says, "Ms. J. that man in the truck next to us is looking at you."
"He is not looking at me."
All the children go, "Yes, he is, look."
I look and the man is not looking at me. "See, he is not looking at me."
"Now he is," says one of the boys.
"Do you think that man is attractive?" asks Raphael.
At this point, I needed to be out of the van. This was going downhill and downhill fast.
We arrived back to school early and had a movie day with the children. The parents really came together helping to make hot chocolate and provide the children with endless sweets. The children in the end had an awesome day. They loved the field trip and the afternoon movie. We may have had a rough start, but in the end the children had a blast, saying it was their favorite day of school so far.
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