Calling all adventurers, explorers, Safari Rangers and all mini Jack Hannas to the Columbus Zoo! Today was a spectacular adventure to the zoo with Mrs. Sutliff's third grade class, and we had such a wonderful time. I went with Katie Sutliff and one of her friends and we met up with the class. There were 4 or 5 chaperones each with about 5 kids in their group, but there was one mom who had five kids and her own two year old little boy with her. Among the five kids that she had in her group, one of those students has been having troubles at home, one is one of Mrs. Hart's behavior students and another is one of the students Syntero is evaluating. So, she had a very tough caseload. I went along with her group to help her out with some of the stressful events. The kids were running everywhere looking at all different kinds of animals and jumping on the playground. Everything was going great until Mrs. Hart's student was playing in the airplane with the other kids. Someone grabbed this little boy and told him it was time to go, so he screamed at the top of his lungs and was very hostile to me and the mom. So, I spoke with him for a little bit, and he was so upset. One of Mrs. Hart's assistants was also there, so she helped me, but he was screaming "I hate you!!" And "Leave me alone!" To Mrs. Miller (the assistant). And, he kept burying his face into my stomach hiding from her. I asked if he would hold my hand, and he did, but he was still very angry at Mrs. Miller. It made me really happy that he trusted me because it shows that I'm really building rapport with him which is great! But, his behavior was not so great. Fortunately, Mrs. Sutliff came to the rescue and was prepared to remove him from the zoo, but he was able to turn it around and he got to stay the whole day! When he was having that uh-oh moment Mrs. Sutliff called Mrs. Hart and he hung up on her, so later at lunch he asked if he could call her and apologize it was so cute.
The students picked out some amazing places in the zoo to go see, and I had never seen the Heart of Africa exhibit, and it is really amazing the lions were sitting so close to us, and because there was a trench there was no glass, and they were sitting no more than 20 feet from us. The students were almost as amazed as me! In that enclosure, there are also zebras, giraffes, ostriches, kudus hyenas and gazelles! It was amazing to see them all living in peace in such a large area of land. It really felt like we were in the heart of Africa. The cheetahs, which were in a separate area were beautiful! They had such stunning fur. It is funny though because there were so many beautiful animals but we only got to see a few because the kids were just rushing through. We did stop at the Penguins, and they were super active, as they swam from one end of the water to the next! I got an interesting picture of Mrs. Hart's student practically kissing the penguin! It was so much fun!
In the end, it was such an educational experience for both me and the students, as they learned about the animals, and I learned about how to improve my teaching skills. I am so fortunate to have found such an amazing class and a spectacular mentor to inspire me to be the best teacher possible!
The students picked out some amazing places in the zoo to go see, and I had never seen the Heart of Africa exhibit, and it is really amazing the lions were sitting so close to us, and because there was a trench there was no glass, and they were sitting no more than 20 feet from us. The students were almost as amazed as me! In that enclosure, there are also zebras, giraffes, ostriches, kudus hyenas and gazelles! It was amazing to see them all living in peace in such a large area of land. It really felt like we were in the heart of Africa. The cheetahs, which were in a separate area were beautiful! They had such stunning fur. It is funny though because there were so many beautiful animals but we only got to see a few because the kids were just rushing through. We did stop at the Penguins, and they were super active, as they swam from one end of the water to the next! I got an interesting picture of Mrs. Hart's student practically kissing the penguin! It was so much fun!
In the end, it was such an educational experience for both me and the students, as they learned about the animals, and I learned about how to improve my teaching skills. I am so fortunate to have found such an amazing class and a spectacular mentor to inspire me to be the best teacher possible!