The school district I work for promotes the importance of providing our students with the tools to be successful for life. So, how can we help to carry over skills learned in therapy to real-life settings? How do we encourage our students to interact with individuals in the community or those outside of their comfort zone? FIELD TRIPS!! I am very lucky to have an incredibly supportive administrative and student services team. They are more than willing to provide these opportunities for my students and help out in any way possible. I also am grateful to have free district transportation to take us on these wonderful trips! I will outline the trips I have taken with my students over the past 5 years and the activities/goals we have implemented for each one. JEWEL-OSCO grocery store field trip You can find a more detailed explanation of this specific trip in my blog post. The goal for this field trip was for my students to be able to independently navigate around a grocery store while following a shopping list. I also wanted them to be able to interact with grocery store employees and purchase something with their own money. I created a master "shopping list" in a scavenger hunt format based on the menu and shopping lists developed in therapy. Each student received the same list, but were each given a different "starting point," so that they were not working as a large group, rather groups of two. Each time they encountered an item on their shopping list they were to write down the price on their shopping list. If they were unable to locate an item, they were encouraged to ask a store employee. At the end of the "scavenger hunt" the students were allowed to pick a snack and go check out. DOLLAR TREE Holiday Shopping We have gone to dollar tree on a few occasions. We went once around the winter holiday and again around Valentine's Day. We spent our time at the dollar tree problem solving various gift giving situations. Prior to the trip we discussed the importance of considering individual family members/friends likes and problems to come up with gift ideas that each person would like and appreciate. Students were encouraged to purchase a Valentine’s gift for a loved one or someone special before buying items for themselves. My students were to complete the following activity before searching for gifts for loved ones. DUNKIN DONUTS This field trip is a huge hit with the staff in my building! I start out by sending a survey to all staff to see who would be interested in having a coffee/sweet treat delivered to them on a specific date (usually choose Fridays). I also have the teachers fill out a good time for a student to come by to take their order. I usually have 20-30 staff members who are interested in participating! I will admit the preparation for this field trip is pretty timely, but the outcome is so worth it. Once I establish staff interest, I then have my students practice their script for taking a coffee/donut order. Each student is assigned a teacher and they go collect the order & funds from their designated staff member using the script and order form. Each teacher has their own envelope which includes their order form and funds so that we can easily keep track of everyone's money and that the student can be fully responsible for putting change back into the envelope. On the day of the field trip my students not only order for their assigned teacher but they also have the opportunity to enjoy a treat of their choosing. Upon re-arrival to school, students hand deliver their staff members order to their classroom/office. We like to take this field trip in the early fall since we are within walking distance of the dunkin' donuts. MCDONALDS We took a walking field trip to McDonalds as an end of school year celebration. We did not have an activity to complete at McDonalds but we did go through a social story and discuss appropriate ways to act/communicate with employees. Here are some of the things we discussed prior to the trip:
SUBWAY I also take all of my 8th graders on an end of year walking field trip to Subway. We do not have an activity to complete while at Subway but we do discuss vocabulary/expectations prior to the trip and they are encouraged to have a conversation with someone they do not know well while eating their lunch. What field trips have you taken your students on? Do you have any fundraising ideas? What other questions do you have after reading this?
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