Peer teaching part of FSCH students' field trip

Entomologist John Nelson shows Fort Scott Christian Heights fifth and sixth grade students part of his butterfly collection at Oral Roberts University during a field trip Thursday. Students shown here are (counter clockwise) Lil Hall, Zach Pridey and Zadok Self. In addition to enhancing their classroom learning about mammals and insects, the field trip took them to the Oklahoma Aquarium for oceanography and to the Victory Christian School in Tulsa, where they engaged in peer teaching.

Fort Scott Christian Heights fifth and sixth grade teacher Vickie Shead took learning to the extreme last Thursday.

At 6 a.m. Thursday morning, Shead and her class loaded up in her van and headed out to a location of which the students were not informed in advance. This trip contained many surprises for the students. All that Shead told her class was that they were having the trip and that it would be a day packed full of learning and fun.

It took the class about three hours to reach their destination, which the students soon found out was Tulsa, Okla. However, even the three-hour journey was packed full of learning experiences, which kept the students entertained along the way. Since it was dark when the students left the school, during the beginning of the trip the students listened to Bible stories on tape. After the sun had risen, they practiced Bible verses, grammar jingles and reviewed grammar sentences. At this point they were also instructed that each of them would be expected to write a composition about the field trip once they returned home, Shead said.

Upon arrival in Tulsa, the students made a stop at Victory Christian School for a scheduled teaching session. However, it was not Shead's students who would be doing the learning this time. They would be doing the teaching. Shead said that her students taught the students at Victory Christian School how to do grammar balls, jingles and board sentences. According to Shead, these are tools that she and her students use in her classroom in order to help them with their grammar lessons.

Next, to enhance the science unit about mammals, insects and oceanography that the students had just finished studying, Shead escorted her students to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks, Okla. Shead said that the visit to the aquarium greatly expanded on what the students had learned in the classroom.

"It was an awesome place to further our oceanography studies with hands-on experiences -- something a bit hard to do when we live in the middle of the U.S. with no oceans, " she said.

After a picnic lunch, the students ventured to Oral Roberts University to meet with entomologist John Nelson. An entomologist is an insect expert. Nelson has particular expertise in butterflies and has many drawers filled with different varieties of butterflies. He is an agent who keeps track of the number of butterflies in Oklahoma, Shead said.

Before making the trip back home, Shead and her students wandered through the Tulsa Zoo. Shead said that the zoo reinforced the mammal unit the students had been studying at school.

"The zoo helped us visualize what we had been studying about mammals this nine weeks," she said.

The excited fifth and sixth grade students rolled back into Fort Scott shortly after 9 p.m. that same evening.

"It was a great day," Shead said.