Field Trip Tip
I have a love/hate relationship with field trips. Fear over losing a child to fights with my desire for them to learn from hands on experiences and have fun.
Here’s my compulsive, but very simple, tip for keeping all kids accounted for, especially if they are younger students like kindergarten, and if groups need to be 5 or more kids.
Make your own nametags for each student. Don’t roll your eyes. It can be a simple shape like a square or rectangle. Make them out of different colored construction or copy paper. Even tagboard if you’d like. Use a different color for each group. Ok. Not a new thing up to this point. But here’s the part that helped me breathe easier. I gave each parent volunteer a list of students in their group printed on the same color paper as their nametags. I kept a master list of which parent had which colored tags.
Why, you say? Well. If I saw a student away from their group I could immediately check and see which parent they were supposed to be with and redirect them to their parent volunteer. And though it’s easy for a parent to quickly memorize names of students in their group, I figured with 5 or more students it was helpful to have a list.
The color coordination just helped me relax.
How about you? What tips do you have for field trips? Be sure to share in the comments.
