New York Teacher

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Home : 2007 : March : 7

New York Teacher
By msharkey

I teach in NY. To pay for the trips we do a few things.

We write grants to our PTA.
Our school/district "joins" certain museums each year so the children don't have to pay a fee or pays a reduced fee.
And we
tell the parents about it at our Open House. The walking trips (Library, Firehouse) are free.
The trips to the river have no fee (the person who conducts it is a husband of a retired teacher) so we just pay for the bus.
The trip
Our trip to the zoo is on a "free day" so we just pay for the bus.

The other trips include the price of admission and bus costs.

What

we did this year (the cost of bus went up so it was expensive) is we totalled how much the busses would cost us for the year and estimated the cost of the fees/admissions and divided it into the number of trips to lower the costs each time we took a trip. So although our trip to the Nutcracker would normally cost the kids around $15 with bus and admission, because we took this amount and added it with the other costs and divided it by 9 (the number of trips we take over the year), it cost less.

It's not cheap but it is well worth it. We incorporate it into our entire curriculum.

We have sooooooo many children with speech/language issues or who are ESOL or who are from poverty sticken homes. To give them these experiences that they normally would not experience, is priceless.

On a different note, I have 4 year old twins and I take them to an apple orchard each fall as well as a Nature center to go Maple Syruping (just another idea for you).

My advice is to find out what museums and other local excursions are in your area -not just firehouse, polices station. But also think differently - a trip to a bakery is wonderful. We are still on a waiting list for Stew Leonard's which is like a market in our area.

Think outside the box. What's fun - what's around you right under your nose?

Hope this inspires you,
Maureen