Day #16 (Excursion Day!!!)

Although my student teaching is completed and done, I decided to go back and help out and work with the class again.  Today we went on excursion to CERES, which is a wetlands park that does a lot of eco-friendly things.  It was great because students learned a lot, had a lot of hands on activities, and had fun.  It was quite different from our first trip to Healesville Sanctuary.  I was also able to see how to deal with students in an excursion environment.

This excursion was a lot more relaxed than the first excursion.  Students were given more time to explore and look closely at things, where as at Healesville the students were rushing around and did not get much time to explore and learn.  They were both great learning experiences for the children but at CERES students were able to more thoroughly explore things they were talking about and learning about.

Students did three different 50-minute activities.  Students did a walk along a Creek which explored the impact of humans, an organic recycling lesson where students learned about how earthworms help to compost, and a ponding activity where students looked for water bugs in the pond.  These activities were all really hands on and students seemed to throughly enjoy them.

I was also able to learn how to deal with situations that arise as well.  Today a few students got hurt and I was able to see how my teacher as well as other parents dealt with the situation and I was also able to take charge.  One student got a bathroom door closed on his finger because the students were being silly.  I was able to deal with this situation by having a parent take the hurt child to get some help while I took charge of the students in the bathroom.  The students still continued to horse around even after one of their friends got their finger jammed int he door.  I had to raise my voice for the first time to get the students to listen to me and it worked.  It was a great learning situation for me because it showed me that in a situation like that, raising my voice worked and the students immediately stopped what they were doing and calmed down.

I am really glad to have been able to go on this excursion with the class.  I will also be teaching tomorrow as well and I'm really excited about that.