Today we had our field trip to the Pennsylvania Farm Show. If you’re not familiar with the PA Farm Show, it is the largest indoor agriculture expo in the United States. Basically, if it is grown in Pennsylvania, it is at the Farm Show – cows, horses, sheep, alpaca, bees and honey, apples, mushrooms, Christmas tress, and the extremely popular milkshake.
Field trips are an amazing opportunity for students to learn through authentic experiences outside the traditional classroom. They take students, literally, to places some might not otherwise visit or see. Field trips help build background knowledge and bring curriculum to life. They are fun experiences for students, but as I was reminded today, can be exhausting for teachers. Watching students experience new concepts for the first time, however, makes it all worth the energy.
My class was studying poetry the week before our field trip, so I felt it was the perfect time to write a haiku.
Students excited
Provides authentic learning
Teacher exhausted