Rodeo Field Trip

Well, after spending much of the night trying to finish my Teacher of the Year application, I was able to sleep for 3 hours and then it was up and at 'em! Today is Field Trip day and we're EXCITED! Second graders are always excited when it's a field trip. Heck, even a walk to the elementary school's recycling bin is worth getting excited about! I had three great parent volunteers so actually, even in a sleep deprived state, I had a good time. The thing was, though it looked like it was a beautiful day, a vicious north wind kept us cold. Brrrrr, Texas can fool you like that!

As we were looking at Elsie the Borden cow, (yes folks, here in Texas you can meet and even pet Elsie the dairy cow!) one of my students asked the farmer if he was sure that Elsie was a cow. 

"Why?", the farmer asked. 

"'Cause he looks like a camel.", was the reply. 

Yes, that's a true conversation and you can even find Elsie's owner. He's probably still talking about that one! So, after we return from spring break we are going to have a remedial farm unit and I think we might have to make butter and ice cream. They couldn't believe how the ice cream tasted like the milk! Seriously, I think they missed some important concepts and it was a bit embarrassing-- I mean they ARE second graders! At any rate, being the good farm girl that I am, we will do that unit and somehow work tadpoles into it. At least, that's the unit I wanted to go into prior to this field trip!

The kids loved the petting zoo, they whooped it up in the teepee throwing hay at each other, and jumped up to see over the tops of the stalls to look at the sheep, steers and horses. Most of the animals were huddled up against the back of their stalls by the time we left. I was very sorry about that. I didn't intend to terrify any animals, I just wanted these kids to see the farm animals we're going to be learning about in a week.