Tuesday: field trip

Today was Joshua's 4th grade trip to Lansing and I went as a chaperone.  While there were many similarities to Isaac's, there were a bunch of differences too.

First of all, we had a bus.  I'm not sure I would have gone if we needed to drive.  I know it isn't that far, but it isn't my favorite thing to do.  Anyway, the bus was really nice.

We were on time!  This meant we got to see the whole capital tour instead of just 2/3rds of it.  However, congress wasn't in session and so it wasn't as busy or quite as interesting.  The docent for the tour kept emphasizing how we had to be really quiet so they don't get complaints.  Ok, I get it.  At the very end she was looking down a hallway (presumably with actual workers) and said we had to be extra quiet.  The fourth graders did a great job.  One of the students in the high school class that was with us went "lalalala" and the docent came back and glared at the 4th graders.  Kind of funny, kind of not.

Next we went the museum.  Last time a docent walked us through a large part of it; this time we were on our own.  I tried to keep my group somewhat slow; we had over an hour and the only thing that happened if we went quickly was more time waiting.  We ended up being the last group out (just by a bit) and it worked perfectly.  I thought the kids did a pretty good job engaging with the exhibits.

Lunch was fine.

We also got to go to the Supreme Court, which wasn't on the schedule for Isaac's trip.  I thought the docent did a very nice job and there was some nice interaction on how a court room worked.  That being said, the kids were also starting to be a little done with listening.

I realized what a joy it is to have kids that listen.  How they ask if they can do xyz and then do as expected or ask a reasonable follow-up question.  (Can I get my ball out?  No?  Ok, can I get it out when we go outside?)  How I can expect to go into a gift shop and not have them go crazy.  I know some of that is that we know each other, but it is good to be able to trust them.

The other big difference with this field trip is that Joshua interacted with his peers a ton more than Isaac did.  He didn't sit next to me on the bus.  He didn't eat lunch next to me.  He walked by me sometimes, but not always.  It was different, but good.