Fort Worth Zoo

Today we went out on a field trip with the third grade to the Fort Worth Zoo. The kids were so excited it was hard to keep them focused on anything! I learned a few valuable lessons from this experience that I would like to share:

1. The more parents the better, but there is such a thing as too many. If your main goal is to get the kids to interact and you have parents going that are too attached to their kids, your goal will not be reached.

2. When dealing with young ones in Pre-K you should have no more than four in a group. The kids were so excited and wanted to see all the different animals that they would start going and not necessarily wait for the adults in the group. To make matters worse there were a lot of other schools there too, so you couldn't always tell which ones were in your group and which ones were from other groups.

3. It is very important to wear a shirt that stands out (you as the adult as well as the kids in the school). The kids were to wear their uniforms but white shirts and blue pants don't do too good of a job in standing out when they are standing next to children from other schools.

4. Make sure that your cell phone is on the paper with all the directions for the day that you give to the parents. Also, before you send each group off make sure that you reiterate the number. (Some parents might not even look at the paper and not realize they have your number accessible.

5. When planning the exit time, have it be earlier than what you want to leave. We had a couple groups show up really late and in finding trying to locate them and loading we ended up leaving about 30 minutes later than what we were planning.