Field Trip! and Teacher Appreciation Week

Pretty sure that the Field Trip this week was a big-time success.  I didn't lose any children, no one broke any dinosaur fossils, there was no bus-sickness, and they all had the time of their life.  I had several students tell me that it was the best field trip EVER!!  :)  I'm so glad they think so.

I hope this works...I tried making a slideshow out of all the pictures I took at the museum.  Not all the kids are mine.  The last two pictures are actually another 4th grade class.  I took the pics for their teacher because her camera died while we were at the museum.  And we were the only two teachers out of 5 to bring a camera.  So the others asked me to take a few pictures of their kids as well.  You'll see from a few pictures that they had LOTS of hands-on activities which kept the kids' attention for nearly 2.5 hours!  That's a lot of walking and exploring.

When we got back to school, the class was so worn out.  I'm glad I planned on a read-a-thon when we got back.  We spent 45 minutes just laying around the classroom in dim lighting, shoes off, voice quiet, and just reading.  It was a relaxing end to a fun day.  I don't know that I could handled anything else.  On the bus ride back from the Museum, the two classes on our bus ended up having a scream-singing competition with the Utah songs we've been learning.  I have to say that I'm glad they know the words, but the screaming got old REALLY fast.  I had a huge headache by the time we got back to the school and relished the quiet time to sit and read.

Last week was also Teacher Appreciation Week for us.  Our room moms decorated our doors and the school sent home a note for the students to bring little treats for their teachers throughout the week.  It listed our favorite candy, soda, school supplies, restaurants, color, etc...It was fun to see what came back and I'm so amazed by their generosity!  Here's a few of the things I got:

The last few pictures are from a sweet little scrapbook they made for me.  I may have used the word "skeewhompus" a few times and apparently they noticed!  :)  They LOVE that word now and even tried looking up the spelling in the dictionary.  I had to tell them that it's not a real word but it's used somewhat frequently.  Their answers and drawings of me were so fun to read through.  I love teacher appreciation week!!!