Queens Botanical Garden

Elisa had her first field trip of 1st grade last week on Tuesday.  It was a beautifully warm fall day and I was excited to make the cut as a chaperone. Last year I attempted a field trip on a bitterly cold day in November to the Queens County Farm and swore I wouldn't do that again anytime soon. Elisa was a clingy, whiny beast and I was pretty sure field trip chaperoning was a punishment for some parenting sin I didn't know I'd committed. Fast forward to this year, and I was ready to try again. So there we were on that bright sunny morning heading over on the bus to the Queens Botanical Garden in Flushing. There were only two classes going on the trip (one per bus) which made it feel a little less hectic from the start. And once we arrived our tour guide met us and wasted no time before he began droning on and on about seeds and plants and all kinds of things I could barely hear in his incredibly thick New Yawk accent. The kids weren't exactly captivated, but they did pretty good sticking together and finding things in the gardens around them to marvel at.  We watched bees flutter past a hive, smelled roses and rubbed our fingers on wonderfully scented herbs. It was a lot for all the senses to take in but the kids were loving it. And then we were whisked into one of the classrooms to mix up our own sachets of potpourri using the ingredients found around their gardens. They had ginger root, cinnamon sticks, rose petals, lavender, cedar chips, and marigolds to name just a few of the scents. A few of the boys were starting to get restless sitting around with their potpourri mixes and hit them or otherwise blew on them to send little particles flying. But mostly the class was a good mix of kids and I think they enjoyed having a break from their normal routines. It was almost noon by the time we left the gardens and I could tell the kids were ready for lunch. But there wasn't a lot of whining. They did great (and Elisa even snuck my phone to look at photos on the way back). I especially enjoyed hearing Ms. Dorothy interact with the kids in her blunt, yet invigorating way.  She really gets them interested in the natural world, and I'm impressed by the way she handles the little crazies.  And considering how much better Elisa did having me around on this first outing, I might just volunteer again.