Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/field-trips-planning-for-maximum-benefit-minimum-risk/5013943/
Field trips can contribute positively to the quality of a child care experience. Whether the trip is a walk around the block, or one that involves transport to a more distant attraction, field trips enrich the experiences that children and their caregivers share. For children, any excursion to a place they visit infrequently is a field trip. Nevertheless, field trips add challenges that require careful planning and weighing of the benefits against the risks. Parental consent for each experience must be given with full information about what risks, as well as opportunities for positive experience, the field trip involves. A pre-field trip run-through by staff is essential to making an inventory of all aspects of the experience. Child care providers need such an inventory to plan for maximum enrichment and minimum harm.For each part of the field trip, consider how you would summon help if someone were injured, became ill suddenly, had a toilet emergency, or threw up. Think about how the children can maintain their routines as much as possible while on the field trip - by bringing along easily carried, healthy snack foods and water to drink, planning for toilet stops and hand washing, and including how caregivers ...