Once on the boat, the captain, first and second mate, and cook/doctor took over. The adults were not allowed to interact with the kids at all... no talking, no non-verbal communication. The kids were split into crews. Each crew was trained to take responsiblity of a different part of the ship (yes, we were on a real ship, docked of course). Once given directions by the officers, the kids had to figure out how to accomplish their task without any help from adults. It was amazing to see the kids really step it up and meet the officers' very high expectations.
While the actual program was really neat, the overall field trip was "dampened" by one thing... the weather. Oh, the weather was the worst. Literally, it was the worst. The age of sail people told us that it was the worst weather they have ever had during a field trip.
It was rainy. It was windy. It was cold. Everyone was soaked to the bone. We changed our clothes a few times, only to be soaked through again within 15 minutes. I think the pictures below speak for themselves.
(This was taken right after we got off the bus. Within 30 minutes, all the students were covered in bright yellow rain slickers. We had some time to burn while waiting for our program to start. We walked up to Ghiradelli Square in a line. It looked like a row a little duckies walking around San Francisco.)
(Our ship, the Balclutha. Once used to ship goods around Cape Horn to San Francisco. It's since been restored in order to be used for the Age of Sail program.)
(My little duckies.)
2 comments:
How fun. You must have been such a proud teacher to see your kids growing up and following through with responsibilties.
We did that when I was in 5th grade too! We even had night shifts to be on the balcony. I remember being scared too cause the captain was mean! Glad your kiddos had a better experience than I did. Very cool.
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