School excursion

Today was my first of three school excursions. Essentially, the whole school walks to a park, plays some games, cleans up and walks home. It's supposed to help new classes and the new first year students get to know each other and bond.
It's also the one day a year the kids can be snacks (candy, chips, etc) to school. They usually have a price limit on how much they can bring, but they usually share and trade most of it away anyway. I had a full belly by the end!

Lately I have taken to picking up litter because it drives me crazy and I hate looking at it. I only do it on my way home from or to school so I can easily dispose of it. However I happened upon a littered McDonald's bag so I started casually picking up some trash along the way to the park. I didn't say anything to the kids about it, I would just pick it up and put it in the bag. I didn't expect them to follow my lead or anything. They surprised me though. Some of them started picking up litter and putting it in my bag. One boy took a bigger plastic bag out and gave it to me to use. Some kids interrupted conversions to go out of their way to pick something up. I was impressed.
I didn't expect them to help. I did, however, want them it see how much trash there was and that they shouldn't litter themselves and add to the problem. I think if anything I was able to at least bring their attention to the fact that there was a LOT. It's easy to overlook and forget it's there. I hope this puts a seed in their brain not to litter.