Accompanied by parent volunteers, students may go out to the grocery store to help buy items for snack and cooking days, or to a pet store to buy crickets and other food items for classroom pets. In addition, class trip begin at the Lower Elementary level. This month, Ms. Veronica and Ms. Megan’s classes went on overnight trips to Camp Allen and Forest Glen, respectively. Ms. Kristen’s class will take its overnight to Camp Allen in April.
When the children reach Upper Elementary, their going out expands to include volunteer time at St. Dominic Village and visits to museums and libraries for research projects. At this age, the overnight trips also expand. Ms. Maggie and Mr. Snow’s classes had a four-day experience at Camp Kappe last December and, just last week, spent five days learning in Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Monticello.
In the Adolescent Community and High School, students take on a significant role in planning their trips. They research possible destinations, set itineraries, make reservations, and budget for the trip costs. The AC recently traveled to MarineLab in Key Largo, and you may recall the High School students traveled to Rome, Florence, and Athens in December.
In addition to enhancing their curriculum, the work that goes into planning to go out and take trips prepares children and allows them to develop and refine their communication and organizational skills. It also helps them to go deeper into topics, and take what they have learned in the classroom and apply it in the world.