Field trips can be stressful. You have to coordinate budgets, calendars, and all the people so that the day goes well. As the lead adult in the room you also have to select and coordinate all the other adults helping you chaperone your groups. You know you need to give your chaperons certain things so that the day runs smooth and you want prepared chaperones that your students enjoy, so what do you do?
You create The Chaperone Backpack.
What is a chaperone backpack?
The chaperone backpack is quite literally a backpack you give to the (or all) of the chaperones for your field trip. You may or may not need one for yourself depending on the type of field trip. For instance, if you’re traveling to an amusement park for a performance; take the backpack. If your field trip is to choral assessment, then maybe you don’t also need the backpack.
I got this specific backpack from Walmart because it was cheap, but relatively sturdy and its rather gender neutral, in case you need to worry about that. Its expandable and has padding on the straps and back for comfort. And as I was cleaning it out I also discovered that the side pockets hold an entire 16 ounce water bottle!
What goes in the chaperone backpack?
In my chaperone backpack I put all of the following things:
- Rosters
- Field Trip Permission Slips
- Emergency Medications (if applicable)
- First Aid Kit
- Hand Sanitizer
- Deodorant (I taught middle school)
- Gallon Ziploc Bags (for assessment I had my chaperone take all the things students could loose ex. wallets, phones, smartwatches, etc. and place them in bags marked by grade level so we wouldn’t have anything to make us late getting back to school)
- A Schedule for the Day
- Maps (if applicable)
- Student Contacts
- A Sign Out Sheet (I would recommend only one person have this so that one person can help keep an accurate student count)
What did my chaperones think of the chaperone backpack?
My chaperones from assessment both said that they enjoyed the backpack system because literally anything they might have needed was easily accessible and just handed to them in the backpack. Both teachers that I had asked to help chaperone assessment brought their own personal bags just in case, but when it was time to go they just locked their bags in my office or in a cabinet in their classrooms.
One of my lovely chaperones said that he loved that I handed him everything we would need for the day in a bag since he isn’t’ a musician and had never been to that type of event before. He also loved that I made all the students turn in their phones before we entered the building for assessment and that I had a different Ziploc bag for each grades’ phones. He said we had the only group of students all day that was paying attention to other groups performing and he made sure to brag on our students to them and to me.
Displaced Pedagogy 