Yesterday we took our first graders on a field trip, to Wal-mart. Now I was VERY skeptical of this when I first heard about it because we're at Wal-mart just about every 2-3 days it seems. Well I can tell you the kids all had a great time and I highly reccommend asking if your walmart might do this for your kids if you have a super walmart near you.

Let's see if I can remember all that we did: visited loss prevention (the kids were amazed at all the cameras everywhere, our Wal-mart has 86 of them), then on to the deli and bakery where they donned gloves and hairnets and got to decorate their own cupcakes for snack later on and learned about the different types of deli meats and got to taste a chickenn strip from the deli (yummm, and already cooked too!.) From there we headed over to the freezer section and got to walk into the huge walkin freezers and see where the ice cream, milk, and turkeys are all stored. Then they had a session in HR where they talked about the massive # of employees that they have (400 for just our store, over a million world wide) and how the store is run. I also brought up in there what the kids should do if they're ever lost in the store which they said was a good idea and added it for future use. They got to make their own sandwhiches for lunch, had a coloring contest, unload an 18-wheeler (that was a highlight for them), stock milk (another favorite), man the front door being greeters and learn the walmart cheer.

I know that I'm forgetting some things, we were there from 9:00 until 1:20 and the kids had a busy and full day. They (meaning Wal-mart) were very organized and seemed to really enjoy having the kids there. It was a great experience, I cant say enough about it really.

I took tons of pictures but will have to go through them to post so that I just post pics of Brendan (don't want to put other kids on the net without permission) but I'll do that in a few days or so.

By Cat on Friday, October 26, 2007 - 09:30 am:

That's so cool!!! We have a new Wal-Mart 2 miles from me. I wonder if they'd do something like that for our elementary schools (there are three within 3 miles of the store). Not that my kids are in elementary anymore, but I know lots that are!

By Bemerry84 on Friday, October 26, 2007 - 11:17 am:

My son did this with his daycare about 5 years ago to the Meijer store in town. They had a great time also.

By Dawnk777 on Friday, October 26, 2007 - 11:49 am:

Wow, they really kept them busy! Sounds like a great field trip. The "getting lost" thing would be a good thing to add, too.

One of my kids wandered off from us, and as soon as an employee was aware that she was missing, they did a Code Adam and locked the place down. Someone found her shortly after that. We'd stopped at the service desk and she'd kept walking. Emily was about 2 or 3, at the time.

By Kate on Friday, October 26, 2007 - 11:50 am:

That does sound fun, as much as I hate stepping foot into the Walmarts around here! I called one of the supercenters and they said they stopped doing field trips because of liability issues with kids in the bakery. Interesting. I could see issues with kids unloading trucks for sure... I never knew they had done them in the past. Too bad.