Safety Town

This is my 3rd and final time helping out at Safety Town.  Safety Town is run by the city of Roswell.  They set up a mock town with buildings, streets, and crosswalks in one of the gyms at Hembree park.  They also have a firetruck and police car in the parking lot.  Then they have any preschool, prek, and kindergarten classes around the area come and participate in this program.  Both Talmage and Hayden's prek class did this.  I didn't help in Talmage's prek but with his kindergarten class, and I went and help with Hayden's prek and kindergarten classes.  I wish I would of brought my camera to take pictures but I didn't.  They have 4 different groups rotate around the different areas.  The areas are talking with a lady about strangers and then touring the police car, touring a firetruck and talking with firemen about fire safety, and the last area is in the gym with the mock town and trading off between pedestrians and riders.  The pedestrians are split up into small group of about 3 people and they walk around the town in the cross walks and sidewalks while their leaders (volunteer parents which is what I did) walk with them and talk about traffic and road signs and visiting and talking about the different buildings.  Then pedestrians switch with the riders and they get to get to ride in big wheels on the mock street.  The leader is still with their group and help them with stop signs and traffic lights, and help them turn corners and stop before running into the big wheel in front of them.  Then the whole group comes together again and the director reviews what the kids have learned.  It is a great program and the kids just love it.  I am sad my children are all grown up and will no longer be doing this. 

Field Trip

On Friday, May 13 (ohhh Friday the 13th), I was able to go with Kennedy's 3rd grade class on a field trip to Fernbank the museum of Natural History.  Going in, I thought we were going to be walking around the museum.   When I got to the school and looked at the agenda, I was kind of disappointed to find out that the majority of the time was going to be spent watching an IMAX movie.  Oh well!  The bus ride was loud and crazy.  I sat next to Kennedy's teacher on the way to the museum.  Kennedy's teacher is a member of our church so we had lots to talk about.  Her stake is the same one we used to be in when we lived in Woodstock. 
When we got there and checked in we ate lunch.  Then we had a few minutes to walk around the museum with our little groups until the movie was to start.  The movie was about surfing.  I think it was on the island of Tahiti but don't really remember.  There were lots of other schools there watching as well.  When the movie was over we had time to use the restrooms and then head back on the bus. 
I enjoy going on field trips with my children and as soon as I find out about one I am probably the first parent to email the teacher volunteering.  I mean hey if I can take my 6 kids to Disney World all by myself  for the day, surely I can handle being in charge of 5 or 6 kids for a couple hours on a field trip.

Field Trips Galore!!

The end of April was field trip time for the kids. Connor goes on one field trip a month with all the kids in the North Metro program (autistic kids) of the elementary school. They do things like go to the movies, the mall and eat at the food court, bowling, indoor swimming, Ci Ci's pizza along with Walmart and Dollar Tree, things like that. A lot of autistic kids have problems with going places so there field trips are centered around taking them out in the community to everyday places. Luckily, Connor doesn't have a problem with that he just follows along. Talmage has gone on about 6 field trips this year. He went to a pumpkin patch, the train store which they walked to since it was next to his school, the park, an elementary school, Publix grocery store across the street, and a fire station. Payton, Brenton, and Kennedy only got to go on one field trip and they were one right after the other. On April 29, Brenton went to the GA Aquarium. The next day Kennedy went to the GA Aquarium and the day after that May 1st Payton went to Fernbank Natural History Museum (ya know the ones with the dinosaurs and lots of other stuffed dead animals). Payton was kind of sad that she didn't get to go the the aquarium because she has never gone before and is now the only one in our family that hasn't been. A few years back we had annual passes to Fernbank. I wish they were a little more spread out because I had to hand over $57.25 for all three of their field trips to cover cost of the bus, the ticket for the museum, and extra $$ for those who couldn't afford or didn't pay. Because on the field trip form it says that the payment is optional but if they don't get enough people to pay it would be cancelled. I felt better handing over that kind of $$ knowing they were going to cool places. But the best part of all those field trips is that I got to go with Brenton and half of the 6th graders to chaperon. I guess the 6th graders are divided into 2 teams. One team went to the aquarium and the other team went to Fernbank. I'm glad Brenton's team was the one that went to the aquarium because Brenton has never been before. I could have gone to the aquarium the next day too with Kennedy's class but I had a meeting with Connor's new school that he is going to next year (he will be in 6th grade Middle School next year).

We left at 8:45 am from the middle school on school buses. Besides riding in a small circle in the elementary school parking lot on Kindergarten preview with each of my kids I don't remember the last time I was on a bus for more than 2 minutes. Each chaperon had either 5 boys or 5 girls in their group. I had 5 boys in my group of course Brenton being one of them. Here they all are next to Deepo (Neemo wanna be). Not sure who the girl is but didn't feel like cropping her out.

The aquarium is divided into 5 areas. Each of the kids were given a clip board and a sheet to answer questions on one of the 5 areas. We saw everything from Whale sharks, to sharks, to beluga's, otters, crabs, sting rays, turtles, fish of course, jelly fish basically if it swims we probably saw it. They don't have the seals anymore they are replacing them with a huge dolphin aquarium that they are building right now and we couldn't see the penguins because they are next to the future dolphin exhibit so it was blocked off. We even got to touch a few thing. We touched little sharks (rubbery), sting rays (smooth), starfish, and sea anemones

I had a real great time. I was a little nervous about having a group full of boys. Those boys were very well behaved and they all stuck together and listened and waited patiently while others had to look for answers and fill out their sheet. I had a great time. Oh and I forgot to mention chaperons were FREE so I didn't have to fork over even more $$ than I already had for the 3 field trips.