General Layout – Elementary Route

My route involves a morning and afternoon high school run, a morning middle school run, and a morning and afternoon elementary school run.

The morning elementary school run takes me out into the country right outside of Newberg. I pick up about 14 children.

Mornings are nice. These people are usually pretty mellow in the morning…unless I make the choice to rouse them up a bit. The main way I do that is by asking them where they want to go today. Then they choose a country or city they want to go to and we “talk” about it for a bit. Yesterday we went to see the pyramids and Nile River in Egypt. However, we really don’t talk about these things, we yell. The bus is a noisy vehicle and the children want to be heard over each other, so it becomes a yelling match really quickly with the level of noise rising with every mile that passes. Yesterday on the afternoon run they were yelling about who liked the Beavers and who liked the Ducks. That got really loud…until I put an end to it.

Anyway, we talk about where we will travel to today, but everywhere we go ends up looking a bit like Mable Rush Elementary School. This seems to frustrate some folks, but most don’t seem to mind.

In the afternoon, I pick up anywhere from 45-55 children at Mable Rush. I take most of them to a couple housing developments on the edge of Newberg. The rest are the same ones I pick up in the morning.

I won’t say much about the afternoon run right now, except to say one adult dealing with 55 children who just got out of school is really bad odds. A good day is when things stay at a dull roar. We don’t have many good days. I remember on last year.

These kindergarteners through fifth grades are wonderful people. They’re cute, funny, creative, chaotic, curious, and loving…and full of life…especially noisy life.