Bike Field Trips

I am wondering how others feel about biking field trips. We live in the middle of town and can bike to many different places. We also have many bike trails that take us all over town that we can access quite easily. I probably wouldn't do this with younger grades, but what about 4th or 5th graders?

Field Trips

I want to discuss field trips and what exactly constitutes an educational field trip. I love field trips and my grade level team takes many throughout the year. The concern I have is whether the time missed in class is worth the educational value of the field trip. With the growing push to raise the achievement level of all students I want to know what is most productive for the students. A question I have for other educators is, what do you do during your field trips to help the students learn something and make them educational?

For myself I have tried once in a while to have the students take notes or do some kind of assignment related to the field trip while they are on the field trip. I feel that it is very important for schools to value the community they live in and try to involve the community in the education process.

One big concern for our school district is that because of bus scheduling elementary field trips must be over by 1:30 p.m. This would be OK for some field trips but for other field trips it really makes it hard to go and do what we would like to do.

I am also curious as to what field trips other educators go on that relate to their grade level core standards. I teach 4th and 5th grade depending on the year, so I am looking for ideas for those grade levels, but I also think many field trips will work across many grade levels. Let me know what you think. I would appreciate some feedback on this.

Sincerely,

Mr. A