It's so freaking cold today - 20 degrees at 4pm - TWENTY DEGREES AT FOUR PM IN MID-NOVEMBER - that I thought it would be nice to sit back and reminisce about a warmer, happier time.
Like last Tuesday, when it got up to 54 degrees.
Last Tuesday I chaperoned a field trip for Spencer. It was a little strange because it wasn't for his whole class. Okay, wait, how do I explain this simply?
Okay, so ALL 5th graders in the school get to go on this field trip. But since space is limited, each class takes one day for a week to go. Since Spencer is in the 4/5 multi-age class, his teacher just sends a few of her students each day with a different class, since there are too many to go all at once but not enough to warrant their own day on their own.
It's called the "Challenger" field trip and all of the kids at school look forward to the day when they're old enough to go. It's something of a rite of passage; you get to go to Challenger and then you're ready for middle school. Or something.
It takes place at the
Challenger Learning Center in Indy. Long story short, the kids get to pretend to be on a space mission; each kid has their own specific job and each kid REALLY gets into it. Like really. (I talked to one of the staff and she said she rarely runs across a child who doesn't go all out when they're "on their mission."
Since it was in Indy and we had to be there fairly early, we had to be at school at 7:15am OR FACE DIRE CONSEQUENCES. Like being left behind. Which we were not, because we were there at 7:15. But there were several kids who weren't there until 7:30 and even 7:40 who were also not left behind. Harumph.
Riding on the bus is pretty much my least favorite part of any field trip. Have you been on a school bus lately? No leg room, whatsoever. So I wasn't too pumped for this, until I realized we had few enough kids that I could have a seat to myself! I sat right in front of these three amigos:
That's Spencer with his two good buddies, Clayton and Kolten. Sitting in front of them for an hour on the bus was a kick in the pants - they were so fun to listen to! I could tell they were really good friends. Who knew you could talk video games for so long? These were the only 3 kids from Mrs. Rambo's class that day. I suspect she put them together because she knew what good buddies they are. I also suspect she enjoyed having all three of them out of class for most of the day, too. :)
So we got there and our mission commander gave a little presentation about the space program, NASA, and the Challenger shuttle. I mean, I know the space program seems to be in its death throes right now, but it's still pretty exciting for this child of the 80's to talk about NASA and such.
**Side note: Here's a real conversation Spencer and I had the day before the field trip.
Spencer: It's called Challenger. You know, like the shuttle that blew up.
Me: I know. I remember when that happened.
Spencer: WHAT?! How can you remember that? It happened A LONG time ago.
Me: I was in 2nd grade, Spencer. It wasn't
that long ago. We watched it in class. It was sad.
Spencer: No, it was a LONG TIME AGO.
Me: It was like the mid-80's, Spence.
Spencer:
How old are you?
**Thus endeth the rotten-child side note.
So the kids were given their jobs and then separated into mission control and shuttle groups. Spencer was lucky enough to be in the shuttle group the first time around. We went into this little room to watch a video to explain their mission (Send a probe from the shuttle to the moon.)
Then we went into the shuttle room. Spencer was a probe scientist, which meant he got to wear a super-cool and much-envied lab coat.
They were given instructions and clipboards that showed exactly what they needed to do. It was interesting because even though everything was spelled out in those clipboards they still made mistakes because they just wouldn't follow or read all the instructions or they decided to do something a little different. It was a good lesson in teamwork, because when they made a mistake it affected the entire crew.
Parents weren't allowed to intervene at all, so for the next 45 minutes I just puttered around, took lots of pictures, and bemoaned the fact that I couldn't get any cell reception at all. (It's like the entire building was lined in lead or something...)
Workin' on the probe.
The shuttle commander giving out instructions.
More of the shuttle room.
The kids really did get into it. It was fun to see them so excited.
Here was our view of Mission Control.
Some kids got to use these robotic arms to perform experiments. They all assumed it would be easy because they played video games so much. They assumed wrong!
Getting some help from the shuttle commander.
Oh no! Emergency!! (See the flashing red lights?) I'm not sure what Spencer and his buddy did, but apparently the probe caught fire. Smoke and everything! We had to evacuate and fast!
At this point the crews switched, so it was Spencer's turn to be in Mission Control. The new group in the shuttle had to figure out how to fix the probe and launch it - with Mission Control's help.
The kids all agreed that being in Mission Control was harder because they had to tell the kids on the shuttle what to do and had to make all the hard decisions.
Fortunately, Spencer loves to boss people around. He was pretty good at it.
After the mission was successfully completed we ate a quick snack lunch and got back on the road. We were back at school by 12:30p, even though we were told we'd be gone until 2p. I had toyed with the idea of taking Spencer out to a movie after the field trip, but felt like missing 3+ hours of school would have been a bit much. Plus, Spence was
really excited to get back to class and tell his friends about his adventures.
All in all, a pretty great field trip: a seat to myself, very well-behaved kids, very little actual chaperoning, and a very happy boy. Sign me up again for when Josh is in 5th grade!
