Field Trip #2

Field Trip #2-- Pear Picking

Every Second Tuesday of the month we take our kindergarteners on a field trip. October’s took us to an old Grandpa’s farm to pick Pears. To be honest, it was less than exciting. We had to travel on the bus with our students for about an hour. When we got there we lined them up and then asked where we could have the children use the washroom. To this “grandpa” replies “EVERYWHERE”. AHHHH!!! ha ha so imagine little kids whipping down their pants and squirting in all directions! We then lined them up walked through the trees and lifted each child up to pick a pear off of the branch. Interestingly, the pears here are not like pears back home. Instead, they are huge (two times the size of a large apple) and are round like an apple but a light brown colour. So the pears were oddly already wrapped in paper and each student picked one off the tree (trees are about as tall as me 5’3). What was cool about this pear tree area was the lines with bells on them that hung a little over the trees that rang periodically to scare the birds away. Apparently this is how it is in Canada too... but having never been to an orchard before I have never seen such a thing. Once the pears were picked we walked around and through a garden and then had too much down time hanging out in the trees doing nothing. My students were fascinated by the earthworms which didn’t bother me until they got out their twigs and started breaking them apart and poking them. Ugh! I didn’t like that and tried to stop them but my efforts only worked a short time. Finally, we boarded the bus and the field trip was brought to an end. A huge bonus to the day was that i did score some free peaches! I’ll take that any day!