3rd Grade Field Trip

WoW!

What an exciting, well, let's be honest, exhausting Friday so far.

I went as a volunteer on my son's 3rd grade field trip to the zoo. I don't know how many of you guys have been to the Honolulu Zoo, but it is H-O-T!! It's close to the ocean so it is also more humid, and when we got there it was raining, which made it worse. I could smell the steam off the elephant's poo... UGH!!

Anyhootie, that's neither here nor there.. I was exhausted and acting like a "Mrs. Cranky Pants" going into it this morning, but decided to try to have a good attitude. We have annual passes for the zoo out here, so we go a lot, it is not like it was all new to me. Then the teacher says, after she had already told me she needed no more chaperones but I volunteered to go anyway, that I owe her $2 for admission to the zoo.. Ummmm.. No, I don't, I have the pass, and I got myself in on my own. But thanks anyway..

After not needing to be there, and not being asked to help, we (Sandy and I) were voluntold to anyway. How exhausting!! There are 27 3rd graders in this class alone. One teacher and two chaperones and two voluntold helpers later, everyone is ready to pull their hair out. Half of the things on the schedule were closed when it was our scheduled time to participate in them.

So we are going through the zoo and trying to find out all about the animals that we have seen thousands of times before. The purpose of this trip is to be able to do a report on an animal and its habitat. This, as I find out later this morning, is due on Monday. Oh geez.. Ok.. Thanks, again. LOL..

Then at lunch we were all separated, and I was stuck with the group of 6 boys (who were ALL boy if you get my drift). With the exception of mine, the others were chasing and kicking at the birds to keep them away from the tables. So I say, "if you wouldn't eat like pigs and drop food all over the place, the birds wouldn't be bothering you." They, of course, think it is just funny, so they decide, let's just keep going and ignore the old lady telling us to stop kicking the birds. So I finally ask them how they would like it if someone were kicking at them and they had to go around with a foot up their behind. (I concede that maybe this was not the most appropriate thing to say to these supposedly gifted 3rd graders.) Well, that did the trick. They finally stopped chasing and kicking the birds, they ate their lunch and then we finished our trip around the zoo.... Eventually.. It was a long morning..

So my son is set on doing his report on the giraffes. They are one of his favorite animals from when we came to the Honolulu Zoo when he was just a baby. Well he decides that maybe he can get more out of it if he chooses to do a different animal than the ones he knows more about. What can I say, he's a bit of a genius at times..

So he decides after we get home, that he is wanting to learn about Meerkats. OK!! Gnarly. This will be great. They are so cute!! So he asks me to do a little more research about the meerkat family and their habitat so that he can "supplement what (he) learned at the zoo." Again, genius, right? So I say, OF COURSE!!! So I'm teaching him how to do research online. He finds his information but doesn't know how to word it correctly. So I make a chart (yes, I do believe that is one of my OCD tendencies).

He then has to also draw a picture of the meerkats in their habitats. His ideas became my sketching. I tell him he can use my drawing as a go by, but he needs to draw it on his own for his report. "Yes Ma'am," he says. Ok, going good now. He's in there doing his report, and drawing his picture. No worries, right? WRONG!! He comes in almost in tears!! "MOMMY!!! MY MEERKAT DOESN'T LOOK AS GOOD AS YOURS".... Oy vey!! So I cheat and draw his meerkats for him.. Yes, I used the plural because one meerkat was not good enough. We had to have one digging the burrow, one with his head poking out of the hole in the ground, one climbing up a tree, and one sun bathing... hahahahahahaha.. My son is thorough, if nothing else...

We'll see how his teacher responds... TO MY RESEARCH PROJECT.. LOL..

Stay tuned..