The Chaperone Diaries

On Thursday, I spent most of my day with Satchel and his elementary class. After our successful birthday party at Bridges' Climb Night last April, I talked to the education director about school programs. She told me that they do half and all day team building classes incorporating the climbing wall and ropes course. It sounded like an easy sell. Satchel's teacher agreed that a team building day near the beginning of the school year would be fun and educational for the class.

Satchel was SO excited about this trip. I barely got him to sleep Wednesday night. Thursday morning, he moved faster than he ever has before. By 7:15 he was bugging me to "Hurry up!" I explained that we had until 8:30 to get to school, but he refused to believe me. We went to school at 8:15 as a compromise. His teacher needed to get to Bridges, so I volunteered to organize the other chaperones and supervise the kids on the playground while we waited. Everyone was so excited that the playground time was 100% necessary to get everyone semi-calm enough to get in a car!

We got to Bridges at 9am, and Mr. Joe and Ms. Katie were happily waiting for us. Mr. Joe started off by passing around a rubber chicken and letting the kids introduce themselves. Then they did a game of tag to get their wiggles out before Ms. Katie talked to everyone about goals for the day (Be Honest, Stay Focused, Bring Your A Game, and Surprise Yourself).

The kids then moved on to a series of floor exercises--all focused on teamwork--and had debriefing sessions after each one. Here they are working together to bounce Miss Piggy. It took them forever to get her up just a few times in a row. Then they started communicating and brainstorming and soon they got up to 60. (They probably could have gotten to 200, but Mr. Joe stopped them.)



Jacey summed up the experience best when she said that spending the day doing fun things with her classmates was like making new friends with people she already knew. I seriously teared up when she said that.

Satchel got frustrated with one of the exercises when his teammates didn't take turns. Had I not been there he probably would have gotten over it, but since I was there, he needed to hug me and sit in my lap for awhile. I hated seeing him upset, but didn't mind the fact that he needed a little mommy time. (Remember, I take what I can get these days!)

We all brought sack lunches and I enjoyed watching the complex barter system that went on between the kids at my table. Just a FYI--barbeque chips will get you anything, even half of a ham, bacon, and pepperoni sandwich!

The rock climbing after lunch was definitely the highlight of the day. The kids did an Australian belay, which means that each group was responsible for getting one climber safely up and down at a time. The kids were all very serious about the task and supportive of each climber. The girls made up a little cheer, which was sweet.
Not everyone made it to the top, but everyone tried their best. (Satchel made it up twice and was very proud of himself.) Here's a very poor video of it (don't mind the angle switch!):



It was a treat getting to spend my day off with the class. Here's all 88 of the pictures I took. (Jiro wanted to see everything that happened!)


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Speaking of Jiro, he was so mad that he didn't get to go on the field trip! (Even though he thinks the climbing wall is "scary.") Having his big brother and his best friend in the elementary class is really hard on him. BUT it is making him work work work. He is determined to get promoted ASAP. Since I had the whole day off, I told him that I would take him to speech class in the afternoon and that he could pick somewhere he wanted to go "on a field trip." His first choice was Chuck E. Cheese. Then he said Game Stop or Target. We finally settled on Baskin Robbins. I let him get a double scoop.