Catching Up..Field Trip and a Rafflecopter Giveaway!!

This post is all about a field trip, and a freebie. The rafflecopter is at the end of this post.
First things first: Field trip.  I decided, instead of me being the only photographer in the group; I'd give my students that job too.  I armed each of my parent volunteers with a camera or an iPod, and talked to the kids about what type of pictures they were looking for.  They were on a scavenger hunt.  Looking for pictures of things they used their 5 senses for.  Things they saw, smelled, heard, tasted, and touched.  They came up with some fantabulous pics.  I printed them out & we debriefed the field trip by going through their photography.  We sorted them into a tree map in the hallway, and it was truly one of the most successful field trip projects I've tried.  If you'd like the tree map headers, I've posted the link below.  lol, I'll post it as soon as I figure out where I saved the file!

I also made a field trip survival kit for my team.  Basic supplies: bandaids, baby wipes, napkins, kleenex, plastic bags, advil, chocolate.  You know, the essentials!  I put these labels on the front & they saved the day more than a few times...click on the pic to grab the labels.  Thanks to the 3am teacher for the cute background!

We had our first field trip of the year a few weeks ago, and I think it went smashingly well.....as far as field trips go!   We all know, the kids look forward to these for months, but I usually dread the organized chaos involved.

This time around, we went to the Oil Ranch located in Hockley, about 45 minutes outside of Houston.  It's a sprawling bajillion acre ranch with TONS of things for my little explorers inquirers (gotta use those IB words!)  They have trains, hay rides, animals, pony rides, petting zoos, indian villages, mazes, bouncy thing -a-ma-jigs, playgrounds, picnic areas, sno cones, pumpkin patches, lakes, and a  partridge in a pear tree.

I wish I could post pics of all the fun my little guys had, but y'all will have to settle for one of me and my counterpart in crime first grade, Miss French.  We had such a great day; the weather was beautiful and I had so many awesome parent volunteers.  Our day ended with the excitement of each of my students getting to pick their very own pumpkin--oh the excitement!!  I think our bus ride home explains it all....

Now, Rafflecopter.  In honor of me being an absent blogger, I'm giving away an item for every week I slacked off and didn't blog.  Yay for you!  As of now, there will be four winners...so put your name in the hat, tell your firends, and blog about it!  I'll draw 4 winners on the 17th!  a Rafflecopter giveaway