Thursday, May 17, 2012

Getting Started

This winter I made a list with over 140 field trips ideas.  About a month before the beginning of our field trip season (April-June, Sept), I sent this list out to our group and asked them to pick the top 10 field trips that their family would like to take.  I tallied these numbers and then decided to go with the top 6 ideas. We take our field trips on Fridays.  The families are pretty flexible with time.  I then started calling to line up dates and pretty much have everything lined up by the time we took our first trip.  This helps a lot because we know that spring can get crazy busy.

I try to get a feel before I line up the field trips for how many will be at each field trip by asking the families to let me know what dates they will for sure not be able to coming.  We all try to give it our best effort to attend each field trip.  It's not very nice for 10 people to show up when 25 were scheduled.  It shows the owner, workers, etc that we care and are thankful that they have taken the time out of their day for us.  I think that is what makes our field trips work: that we have a great level of commitment.

I also have made a spreadsheet for each field trip.  On this spreadsheet, I list all the families (with phone numbers) involved, the location, date, time and make notes of any other special items...like what to wear, cost, length of field trip.  



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