First Field Trip of the Year!

Last week I went on my first field trip with the 3rd graders and it was so much fun! I think I learned just as much as the students did! We went to the David Davis mansion which is right down the street from Washington Elementary so we all walked there. We went with the other third grade classroom. Walking there made me a little nervous because we walked on the sidewalk of a very busy road, but there were some parents and other teachers there so it all worked out! First we ate our lunches outside on the grass and then started with the tour of the mansion. I had my own group of students to look after during the field trip; I enjoyed that because it made me feel important and I had a responsibility while being there! There were six stations we went through over the course of two hours. There was a laundry station, barn station, garden station, churning butter station, butterfly station, and lastly a station that talked about pollination of flowers. The group of students I had absolutely loved the laundry station. They got the chance to wash sheets and rinse them like they did back in the day before washer and dryers existed.  Seeing all of the students collaborating together to make sure the sheets were cleaned and rinsed properly was so awesome. They were also asking questions left and right which reminded me that they were paying attention. My favorite part of the entire day was the churning butter part. Yes, I knew that is how butter was made back in the day, but I had never actually made it before! We passed a jar around of heavy whipping cream and shook it up. After the jar made it around the table two times, we had made butter! We even got to eat it with a cracker. I think by this point I was more amused than the students were and I was asking questions myself.  I also loved the barn and hearing about the history of it. It was super interesting to learn information about the horses and what they used the barn for. Overall it was a very fun day and the students enjoyed it so much, but you could tell that by the end of our walk home they were ready for school to be over with! I also enjoyed it, but was definitely exhausted as well by the end of the day.Below is a picture of what the mansion looks like from the outside! Back in the day people lived in a barn there before they built the house and now it is just used as a memorial.