Apple Pickers

Our school goes to Honey Pot Orchard in Stow for one of the kindergarten field trips.  (2 years ago Megan and I went with Conor's class.)  This year I volunteered to go with Megan's kindergarten class.  Two days prior to our field trip it rained.  So, Honey Pot Orchard rescheduled the kids who were supposed to come on that day to come on the day our school visited.  I don't think I will ever go there again after our experience!


There were seriously about 12 school buses in the parking lot, each with about 40 kids in them.  Of course there were others visiting that day too who weren't in school groups.  The 2 hour field trip went basically like this:


1.  Wait for the tractor to pick us up
2.  Find a spot on a hay bale to sit for the 1-minute ride to the orchard
3.  Listen to a woman tell the kids not to put their plastic bags (used to hold their apples) on their heads because it was dangerous
4.  Mimic the same woman as she showed us how to pick an apple, twist and pull
5.  File down one aisle of trees and pick about 6 Macintosh Apples - only from the designated side of the assigned aisle
6.  Wait for the tractor to pick us up
7.  Wait for the other tractor to bring the rest of our classmates
8.  Wait in the line to use the bathroom (30 minute wait)
9.  Get on the bus to go home

By the way, did we learn anything about apples?

How does Honey Pot Orchard justify this field trip as one that satisfies any requirements of the Massachusetts State Frameworks?  For example, under the heading of Life Science (Biology) for kindergarten, one standard is,

• Children can use correct vocabulary for phases of the life cycle and for the processes of growth. 

I only heard the word "apple" used twice during the whole field trip (by the adults at Honey Pot).

I think the wait in line with 6 little girls (5 of whom were not my own, and 2 of whom I didn't even know their names), tainted my experience at the orchard.  It was really stressful to make sure that each girl got into the bathroom, washed her hands, and actually made it back to me so we could get on the bus.  When Megan's teacher counted to make sure there were indeed 20 children, I said a little prayer of thanks that there were!  There ought to be (and probably is) a law about how many people/children you can allow on site per bathroom that you have available for them to use.

Bottom line:  Don't go to Honey Pot Orchard!  They are much more interested in making money than teaching children about the life cycle of an apple tree.






Megan had a great time in spite of my critique, as I'm sure the other kids did.