Where our Out of School Care field trips have taken us

On a school day, Out of School Care is the hour or two either side of the bell: a snack, homework for those who want it, a game, the bus. On a PD day, a school break or a summer week, it is a whole day, and a whole day can go somewhere.

Two places our children from High River and Diamond Valley have spent a field trip day are worth describing, because they say something about what we look for in a trip.

Bar U Ranch

Bar U Ranch National Historic Site is a working ranch from the 1880s, a short drive south of Longview on the Cowboy Trail. Parks Canada keeps its 35 original buildings and runs it as a living site: a blacksmith at the forge, horses and wagons, a cookhouse, a creek to walk beside.

What makes it a good day for school-age children is that nothing is behind glass. A child can stand in a barn that is older than the town they live in, watch a Percheron team pull a wagon, and ask a person in period dress a question and get an answer. The history is touchable, which is the only kind that sticks at seven.

Granary Road

Granary Road is a farm park just south of Calgary: thirty-six acres of trails, slides, zip lines and climbing built around agriculture, with farm animals, an indoor discovery centre and a market. It books daycare groups, so our children have the run of the place with our educators alongside them.

It is the other kind of trip: less about the past, more about running until you are tired in a place designed for it, with something to learn tucked into every corner you run past.

What a trip day involves

Every field trip has its own Field Trip Agreement, one per child per trip, that sets out where the group is going, when it leaves and returns, how it travels, who supervises, what it costs and what to pack. It comes home in advance and must be back with us by drop-off on the morning of the trip. A child without a completed agreement stays at the centre for the day, and the group leaves at the stated time, so the morning starts a little earlier than usual.

Ratios go with us. So do each child’s emergency record and any medication that has an approved authorization, in its original container, handed to an educator.

No destination is promised from one year to the next. Where a year’s trips go depends on the group, the season and what is on offer. What does not change is the reason we go: children who have seen a bit more of the world around them come back with more to talk about, more to draw, and more to be curious about.

If your child is in Grade 1 to Grade 6 and you would like to know more about Out of School Care at either centre, the programme page has the day in detail, and you can book a tour any time.