Field Trips

I was a chaperon on Alice's field trip today. We visited Lincoln Square for a few fire safety demonstrations and a "puppet" show put on by the Urbana Fire Department. You can learn a lot on a field trip:

1. As Alice clearly demonstrated the whole car ride over, silly rhyming sounds and "kid Spanish" will always get a giggle out of your preschool classmates. Always. I stifled both the urge to calm her down (I really want her to be friends with this girl and being silly is no way to build lasting relationships) and the urge to join in (maybe I could be a "cool" mom for once). Neither urge was actually rooted in Alice's best interest, so I kept my mouth shut. I won't even go into how much I wanted Mrs. Strom's approval. Sheesh. It's no wonder where Alice gets her "pleaser" tendencies. 
2. There is a WHOLE lot of difference between preschool kids and Kindergarten kids. How they line up, how they answer questions, how they interact with adults, and how they interact with each other is so different. Practice helps, I guess, but the older kids just "get it" better. They kinda know how these things work.
3. We don't have enough fire danger in our home. There was a game "Hot or Not" that the kids got to play. The firefighter would hold up something and the kids had to say whether they should play with it or not. When he held up the cigarette lighter Alice was dumbfounded. She'd never seen one before. Then he held up one of those long lighters that light gas grills or candles. Uh, no clue. Then he held up a book of matches. What's that? (We use boxed matches, not matchbooks) Then a scented candle. We don't have those at our house. And finally, he pulled out a curling iron. Huh?! I laughed and laughed and laughed, wishing for someone to laugh with me. *sigh*
4. Very, very, very loud hip hop music sells anything these days. Even "Stop, Drop, and Roll."
5. When you have a REALLY cool activity, please let everyone get a chance to try it or else you will get tears. Quiet, obedient kids don't always get a fair chance at such cool activities, either. It's the ones hopping all over the place and getting up and asking loudly that end up with the attention...and the turns. Doesn't seem fair, but perhaps that's my bruised mom-ego coming through. 

I can't wait to hear what Alice has to tell Bobby about this field trip today. What stood out to her? What will she remember? I'll post her description when we get it :)