The snow is spoiling my chicken
There are some things I would do differently about last Friday’s field trip to El Caporal. Right now, the first thing I would change is to have put the $30 worth of chicken in the freezer before the triple snow day hit.
Before the trip, days before, I should also have…
- collected and checked off student money for purchases (receipts or no)
- scouted out the market better to know ahead of time which items would not be available
- assigned students to get the ingredients not available at the mercado
- made a list that only included ingredients I was 100% sure they could find
- assigned students to find actual prices–somewhere–for the items they needed for their recipes
- arranged to borrow several flip cameras from other teachers so students could record too
- finalized, printed, and copied grading rubrics
- scouted out the kitchen so I knew where it was at least
- arranged for back-up kitchens somehow
- staged rehearsals?
- kept possible questions simpler
On the trip, I should have…
- made the students wear “no me hables en ingles, por favor” stickers, as I’d planned
- designated a meeting place or at least a cart station for students to go when they found their items
- established a time limit for collecting ingredients
- allowed only those students who got their items to the carts under the time limit to purchase goodies of their own
- designated at least 2 students from each class to try to record interactions on flip cameras (or their cell phones or personal cameras?)
- taken my coat off so I would not feel so irritable
- checked my (husband’s) camera carefully to be sure it was still recording and not frozen
- checked expiration dates!
After the trip, I should have…
- had each student label their own items with the school name for placement in the refrigerator
- had a designated spot in my classroom for the non-refrigerated items
- had students sit by class in the Great Hall when we got back, so I could keep track of attendance
- sent them to computers to start typing scripts
- had grading rubrics ready to distribute
- assigned a reflection journal, perhaps on questions they’d want to know how to ask for next time, what they actually said, heard, and/or observed
- made sure I had a finalized list of the utensils they would need to begin ASAP
All in all, I would not say the trip was a failure, but it was definitely a trial run.
Now if we could just get back to school and start cooking before the semester!
