8th Grade Fun

Who would have thought 8th grade would be fun the second time around?  A couple of weeks ago (yes, I know I am WAY behind on this blog....)  I went on a field trip with the Seoul American Middle School 8th grade to the Arboretum, I don't know exactly where this Arboretum is, somewhere out near Camp Stanley, about a hour bus ride. Now,  I must admit I was a bit scared at first, I mean come on most of these kids are bigger than I am and last year my group of 7th graders were a bit rambunctious.  I could only imagine what was in store for me and when they gave me this group and set us free, I did some SERIOUS praying!

And these two....Oh dear.  You can see the one kid in the above picture...notice how baggie his pants are?  Well, I had to set the tone, so in a fun but firm way I had to tell that boy he needed to pull his pants up and tighten his belt or he could not stay with us.  It all worked out.  He gave me a bit of a 'fun, hard time' then followed my orders.

Now if you have teenagers, you can only imagine how excited they would be about going to an Arboretum...the only reason they even considered going was to get out of school for a day.  Their assignment was to take pictures of 5 different types of trees, then write a paper on the differences.  Well my group was done with their pictures within about 3 minutes. We still had 1 hour and 57 minutes left.  God help me. 
They didn't even notice this...

I was in awe of all the colors fall had to offer.  The kids were excited they ran across this little log in the middle of the walkway. (Notice the trees in the background?)

I did get a nice picture with my son.

And my 'coolness' factory went up just as notch.  Most of the kids ask me to come back to chaperone the next field trip.   I had a great group of kids.  They had fun, but were respectful and they may have been a bit rambunctious, but isn't that what 8th grade is about? 

I'll leave you with a picture of them playing, Duck, Duck, GOOSE!