Field Trip Bento

So on Tuesday my class took a trip to the Orlando Science Center. This was to correlate with our unit on Space. Since I was going on a field trip and would have no morning snack and no water I wanted a lunch that was healthy and hearty. I made the most WONDERFUL salad-grilled chicken, apples, golden raisins, and walnuts topped with a poppy seed dressing. I need to find a low fat recipe for poppy seed dressing because the label has a little too much fat for my liking. Added to the salad were a blood orange, kiwi, and strawberries. YUMMY!!! This was the perfect field trip bento and provided me with the energy I needed to chaperone energetic kindergarteners. In my 5 years of teaching I have learned that on a trip the teacher is the only chaperone, no matter how many parents come.

Time out for a tip from a teacher: If you are a chaperone please remember that the teacher has spent a lot of time planning this field trip so your child can have an active learning experience. A field trip is NOT a time to chat with the other parents. Please conduct your socializing at happy hour, play dates, birthday parties, ect.



Though the science center is no MOSI it was my first time experiencing it with kids since I was a kid. It was really awesome. They have a really fun place for ages 3-8 called Kids Town that has a lot of really neat stuff that is totally kids sized and interactive and not over their heads. There was also a sports area that has the science of sports, but is totally interactive and fun. We had an awesome lab with a super instructor and 4 hands on space demonstrations. She even had a mini projector (about 2 feet in diameter) of picture number 4 so we got to learn a lot about all the planets in a 1:7 experience.

Picture one: They had a really awesome robots exhibit based on the movie robots. The best part of this exhibit for kindergarteners was make your own robot. My boys totally loved it.

Pictures two/three: They had a dinosaur exhibit. What 5 year old doesn't get blown away by seeing huge dinosaurs. They had a place to "dust" for fossils. Surprisingly, my girls loved dusting.

Picture four: A brand new exhibit is about the Gas Giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune). This Earth is actually a 6 foot projector that shows surface images of all the planets. They have bleachers you can sit on to watch and learn. SO amazing!

I would have to say that my kids favorite was probably the sports room, petting a baby alligator and the hurricane experience. They have a cylinder that around 3-6 people can go in and experience 77 mile an hour winds. Since we live in hurricane central the kids really related.

Teacher tip: If you live in the Orlando area and are planning a field trip make sure you go the beginning of the week and arrive at 9. For an hour and a half we had the whole place to ourselves (OSC opens to the public at 10, but hardly any people were there until after lunch)