Field Trip ..... thank you gift for parent chaperones.

We just went on our first field trip of the year last week.

It was so much fun and a great learning experience!

This particular field trip fits in with our study of communities and the history

surrounding our town. We visited an old farm that is now cared for by the  local historical society. Each year the historical society holds something called " Harvest Days" at this farm. Many people dress in early American costume.  Students can visit Civil War camp reenactments, take a peek at antique fire engines, watch steam engine tractors in action, visit an old sawmill, and watch horses plow a field. Even though I have attended

this very same field trip for at least 8 years now, I always come back

learning something new. 

I did find out that our little 'ole town is the oldest recorded

Swiss town in the United States.

I'm always forever grateful for the parents who volunteer to help chaperone these field trips. After each field trip, I have my students write a thank you letter to the chaperones.  This time, I added a little something extra to the accompany those letters after this particular field trip.  It was SO easy and very inexpensive.

 I created a photo collage of our field trip and placed it in an inexpensive frame.  Since our school is sending newsletters and other important information electronically, I also included an attachment of this photo collage with my weekly parent letter.  I have had so many "thank you's" from parents for this photo collage of their child's field trip.

I created the photo collage using Power Point. I made a textbox  and inserted the name of the field trip and the year.  Then I saved it as a picture file.  I think it may have taken me all of 10 minutes to complete this collage.  I have this photo collage displayed in our classroom, and the students love it!

I would love to hear more ideas and suggestions on  ways to  say " thank you " to parent volunteers or chaperones who help out in the classroom.

A Field Trip and a memory book freebie

It was FINALLY time!  We have been in school for 166 days ,and my students were ready for a field trip.   All six classes of 3rd graders at our school were off to the Gateway Memorial Arch in St. Louis.  This culminated our study of Westward Migration.  Take a peek at some of our adventures........

We got a workout in climbing all of these steps!

Students always feel the need to touch the Arch and see what it's like.

The door to our little tram up to the top of the Arch.

A peek inside of this little tram. My biggest fear when riding this tram is a power failure and being stuck inside of this teeny tiny thing with 8 and 9 year olds.  Yikes!

A view from the top of the Arch.  There are little windows at the very top that you can look out of and see the city.  This is a view of the Mississippi River.

A view from the other side.  Busch Stadium is in the distance.

This is a picture from inside the museum at the base of the Arch.

I was so proud of my kiddos.  They represented our school well.  I sure am going to miss them at the end of this school year.


I'm always so worn out at the end of the trip.  All that counting of little heads over and over and over again is EXHAUSTING!  We had about an hour left when we got back to school. First my students wrote a thank you letter to their chaperone.  The chaperones love reading these cute little letters, and it's a great way to teach my students about writing "thank-yous".   Then I created a Memory Mini-Book for my students to fill in with their favorite memories of the field trip.  I try to take a picture of each of my kiddos on the trip.  These pictures will be printed out and added onto their booklet.

You can grab this thank you letter and Field Trip Memory Book for Free by clicking on the picture below.

Don't forget about the fabulous Teacher Appreciation Sales that begin this weekend.  Teacher's Notebook begins their sales on Saturday and Teachers Pay Teachers begins on Sunday.  I have my shopping cart loaded ready to take advantage of these great sales.

All items in my TPT and TN shop are 20% off.  If you use the code below on TPT, you will get an additional 10% off of the sale price.  Stock up!!

Have a great weekend!  Thanks so much for stopping by!!