Lake Murray

How does going on a field trip with the first graders to Lake Murray sound to you? It was an exciting opportunity for me to walk with my first graders (my son and my student) for an afternoon. This was a perfect day because it had rained a day before.

A half hour before our lunch, we all walked to Lake Murray along with four teachers and several volunteer parents. During our walk, we saw several swans and ducks at the lake. Kids were anxious to feed the ducks. Instead of feeding the swans and ducks, we had our lunch first. Some of them ate at the table under the sun. Others ate under the shade. Both my son, my student and I ate our lunch under the shade.

As soon after we ate our lunch, many of them had forgotten about feeding the ducks. They instead wanted to play all kinds of sports that provided for the students. Kids spread out with lots of supervisions around the park. Ryan started out playing with the bubbles. He did pretty good at making BIG bubbles. For one thing, I was glad he was fair and share with other students by taking turns.

The next thing, he was catching the ball with one of my students. It was not an easy task for him to do because he tended to throw the ball either up in the air or throw backward instead of throwing forward to the player. With my instruction, he did get better by throwing it and catching the ball properly. Not only playing with the ball, he even drew a small pink face on a street walk.

One of his classmates had asked him to come with him. They played on the tree as if they were monkeys. Also, they moved on to another place: chatting to each other by the lake. They continued on playing each other while one of my students were playing with other kids.

By the time Ryan and his classmates split apart, Ryan and my student found a ladybug. Ryan said to me, "Look Mom, I found a ladybug. It is on my arm." He was proudly to share with his friend (my student.) The lady bug stayed on their arm shortly until it flew it away. Once it flew it away, they walked together toward to watching the boat passing by on Lake Murray. It was an awesome to see them sitting together on a beautiful day.

At the end of two hours at the Lake, we all walked back a half hour before the school dismissed. Many of us were pooped out for using lots of our energies under a beautiful weather; the sun. That was the best event to spend times together before the school was out.