Friday, October 26, 2007

The Fury of Children Scorned

My class was set to take a field trip today. We've been talking about the trip for a while now -- to a local pumpkin patch where the kids get to take a hayride and choose a small pumpkin of their very own. This trip was planned back in the early days of the school year, around eight weeks ago.

This morning, around 2am, our power went off due to the rain. I should have had a clue right there that things were not going to go as planned.

When I got up for the day, the skies were a pewter color, still steadily disgorging gigantic raindrops all over Creation. The puddles were large and numerous. The street gutters were choked with rain, stray papers, and the effluvia of fall -- pinecone bits, leaves, and a multitude of acorns.

At school, our trip was canceled, and could not, unfortunately, be rescheduled for a later time. The children were sorely disappointed, and moped for quite a while this morning. I asked my principal if I could make a quick trip to the neighborhood grocery store, to see if I might find something to liven up their dreary, non-field trip taking day.

I returned with two 99-cent bags of disposable gloves, a six-pack of microwave popcorn, and a medium-sized bag of candy corn. Six bags of popcorn later, the children were all smiling as they brandished Monster Hands at each other. It may not make up for missing a cool field trip (though I've been on it so many times that I really wasn't all that sad to miss it....) but at least it made a dismally rainy Friday a little bit better.

5 comments:

kathy a. said...

what a fun project! that's too bad about the field trip, though. nothing like running them around outdoors for a while.

ccw said...

Sounds like a very fun way to make up for the missed trip. I wish my kids could have you as their teacher.

Coffeypot said...

Cool idea and quick thinking.

Courtney said...

My daughter just made a monster hand at a party this weekend, and she loves the thing. I have to admit, it sort of freaks me out.

Liz Miller said...

You are the coolest bestest teacher ever!!!!