The fact that it was 45° and rainy this morning did not dampen the excitement Jack’s 1st grade class had for their Chinatown field trip today.

In fact, it pretty much rained icy cold water on us all day. Jack’s first grade teacher made a wonderful, educational scavenger hunt and tic-tac-toe game to help us learn more about Chinatown.

I’d like to say we kept it all educational, but in fact there was a lot of shopping too…

Which resulted in a bunch of boys running around with these…

I tried to calm my inner helicopter parent instinct which was telling me guns and swords were a bad idea and enjoy the moment. Luckily they were so cheap half of them were broken before the end of the trip.

When we got to the restaurant I noticed all the girls had fans. Which made me wonder if our gender stereotypes are ingrained or taught. I later learned the girls wanted swords but were talked out of it. As a mother of boys, I didn’t think I could let my boy not have one when the other boys did. So, I guess nurture won over nature this time around.

After lunch we got some goodies from my favorite bakery in Chinatown, Saint Anna Bakery. Jack very nicely shared them with his brothers after the trip…

It was super cute to hang out with all those happy, silly 1st graders all day but I do have a whole new respect for his teacher. I already thought she was amazing but seeing her in action make me feel like extremely fortunate that Jack goes to the school he does.