A Yellow School Bus

A good friend of mine suggested 'books on tape' as a way to calm down the craziness of car rides. I went to the library to rent a few. And you know what? It works! The kids all quiet down and actually listen to the story. The latest one that I rented was a Junie B. Jones one about a Stupid, Smelly School Bus. The kids love it. (I like it for the most part, except that she uses the work 'stupid' and 'hate' a lot.)

Well, all the talk about a yellow school bus got Cooper so excited about riding a bus. Problem is, there are no buses that bus into his school. He will not be able to ride a bus until junior high. Until now. A Field Trip. To get to the field trip, the kids have to ride a bus. Whoo-hoo! Cooper was so excited to get to ride a school bus, he did not care about the destiny, just the bus ride to get there.

A lot of work and planning goes into a field trip for 100 kindergartners. First there is a 'lottery' drawing to determine which moms get to go on the field trip. Once you are chosen, you are assigned 5 children to take care of and not lose track of. For safety reasons, the teacher took a digital picture of each mom with her assigned 5 children, in case one did get lost, there would be a current picture of each child and the clothing that they were wearing. Thank goodness we did not have to use these to locate and children. They also wear little stickers with our school name, their teacher's name and our specific group number. That way, if they forgot which group they were in, any adult who could read could show them where to go. Wow, so much to know and do to keep track of 100 kindergartners!

The cutest part of the whole field trip? Seeing all the kids sleepyhead when they got off the bus back to school. The teachers told us that half of them took a little nap on the way back. Even Cooper, my child who never sleeps in the car, said he took 'a little snooze'!