Week 3: The week of back-to-back field trips. Prior to this week, I had the opportunity to watch and participate in leading activity stations for the Greensboro History Museum’s outdoor-based field trip, Little House in the Big Woods. My first week was assisting with the colonial toys station. As for week 2, I got to assist outside in the Blacksmith Shop. The second week was beautiful outside, and the kids were a little older, so that’s why we were largely able to have the kids walk through the different buildings 

 On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we had one school send two different groups of kindergartners over two days. The first day had about 42 students registered to show up. For every 10 students, it is required that there be at least one adult. They had originally signed up for the outside field trip. However, it was dark, stormy, and ready to pour at any moment.  And that was the scheduled forecast for both days.

Tuesday morning, my supervisor quickly called the school to ask them about their field trip and if they were okay with changing to an inside-based field trip geared toward younger audiences. After some confusion with the front desk receptionists of the elementary school, we got the school’s go-ahead and quickly shifted our plans. We had to prepare “Welcome to Gate City!,” an exhibit dedicated to recreating areas of early 1900s Greensboro suited for hands-on engagement. After setting up all the stations and the bus being a little late, we got everything ready on time. We typically have the class form groups and march them in a line to the auditorium but it started to rain right as the bus parked so we had to calmly group the wet children in the lobby and then into the auditorium which in the chaos a child somehow managed to find the light switches to the lobby and started playing with them.

The first rotation was a little behind schedule, but after that, everything went fairly well. I got to shadow a few different stations and sit in on learning about the different activity stations. For a portion of the trip, I sat and helped Mr. Nat, one of the docent volunteers who was leading the Maps and Transportation activity. However, by the last rotation, the docent volunteer running the Crystal Theater station had to leave, and I had to cover for her. It was a little nerve-wracking to be in charge of the station, but it was largely me putting on a series of short black and quite silent film clips for ten minutes and then talking and asking questions to the kids about the movies in the early 1900s, to the films and entertainment of today. Overall, it was a fun and slightly tiring experience that I looked forward to doing again. 

For the second day, Wednesday, we were able to line the kids up inside and smoothly transition them from outside, into the auditorium, to upstairs. Mr. Nat had to leave early that day, so I was asked to cover his station. I watched Mr. Nat lead two or three groups, and then for the last three rotations, I covered the activity with Mr. Nat leaving around the time of the 5^th group. I had a lot of fun showing students maps, asking them about transportation, and having them look at two vintage cars, and finding some differences between the vintage cars and the cars they see today.

Everyone seemed to have a fun time. I did have one child who was crying, whom I was able to help by the end of the trip. She had lost her ticket given at the Crystal Theater, and I was able to race and grab a new one for her before she left. I felt really good about both field trips.

However, there would be one surprise that would come at the start of Thursday. I would later get asked about a mysterious liquid puddle in my activity area after I walked the students to the auditorium. The curator of collections spotted it and quickly cleaned it, but it wouldn’t be until the next day that I was asked if it was just water or pee. I had no answer because I never saw a puddle when I left. The area was properly cleaned in the belief that it was urine as a precaution. 

Blacksmith Shop From My Second Week

Images of Gate City and the area where I ran my activity for Week 3