Class Field Trip! To the Park!

Sam had a field trip yesterday to the local park.

His school is right next to a huge local park so every year the end of year field trip is at this park. Nice, free field trip!

I went along as a chaperone. It was a beautiful day! Not hot, not cold. Just perfect.

.We walked over to the park – there is a gate to the park behind the school. It’s that close.  As soon as we got there we went on a “Nature Walk.” We were looking for things that were living and things that were not living.  After the walk, the teacher brought out popsicles!

 

Busy Week

It’s been one of those weeks.  You know, the crazy, everything-happening-at-once weeks.

Monday, Josh had a really cool field trip.

Wednesday, I helped out at Sam’s school. They were having orientation for the new Kindergarteners so I was there to help greet and give tours. It was fun! I saw lots of kids I know from the preschool. All getting excited to go to Kindergarten!

Sam had a field trip today. They walked down to the local Publix Supermarket. I wasn’t able to go because I had to work. My friend Jessalyn took pictures though.


Here is Sam walking to Publix with Malcolm. 

Class Field Trip! Youth Museum

Yesterday Josh had a class field trip to the Cobb Youth Museum and I was fortunate enough to be the only parent chaperone.

It was AWESOME!

Josh has been studying the Revolutionary War in school and this “museum” covers all the areas that he studied.

I hesitate to call it a museum, because it’s really more of a “Living Museum” or “Performing Arts” museum.

Rain Won't Ruin Our Fun!

Yesterday I chaperoned Josh's class trip to the Etowah Indian Mounds.

We've been enjoying some beautiful weather here lately. Sunny, mild, not too hot. It's been beautiful.

So, of course, it rained yesterday. It rained a lot! But we still had fun.

The Etowah Indian Mounds is the most intact Mississippian Culture site in the Southeastern United States. It was home to several thousand Native Americans between 1000 AD and 1550 AD. The mounds are where the chief's lived -- elevated above the villagers and common areas.

One thing Josh thought was interesting was how each chief had to be up higher than the chief before him... so the mounds kept growing and growing.

Here we are on our way out to the mounds --



There are three that are clearly visible. The largest, Mound A, is where the chief lived, Mound B is where the second in command -- I guess we can say "vice-chief" since we're so close to an election -- and then Mound C which is the burial mound and where many of the artifacts in the museum were excavated.

We climbed to the top of Mound A and had a nice view...



The kids counted 124 steps (I think) on the way down.



We even got to go inside the "Wattle and Daub" hut they are re-constructing.



The website has lots of great pictures of volunteers rebuilding the hut. They expect it to be fully finished in the next few weeks.



We were quite lucky -- the second graders were split into two groups. One went to the mounds first and the other did the inside museum first, then they switched. We were lucky -- we got inside first when the rain was heaviest.

It was really interesting -- lots of cool artifacts, a dugout canoe, one ranger talked about the weapons they used (Josh liked this best) and how they progressively got better and better.

It's a shame it was wet and rainy because we really only got to go up Mound A and back down again. There is much more to the site -- you can walk trails up to the river and back to see where they fished, there is a large open field where they lived and also where they had their ceremonies and sports events. It was really cool!

And then when we got home, it really started to downpour!

Chaperoning The Field Trip

Josh's class had their last field trip this week. They went to a really cool animal park called Yellow River Game Park.

It was really a great day out. There are all sorts of animals, some roaming free, that you can feed and pet.



The animals there are rescued or would not survive in the wild on their own. They had lots of deer, sheep, goats, donkeys, brown bears, foxes, cougars, birds of all sorts, buffalo, pigs, and tons more.

Here are some raccoons playing on some of their toys.



You can bring your own food for the animals, or buy some there. I emptied out my crisper before leaving and we had quite a bit of lettuce and celery to share, and some stale crackers and a small bag of peanuts.

The boys' favorite part was petting the bunnies.



Several of the peacocks were displaying their feathers



Because I had Sam with me, I could only take a small group of kids, and the teacher was a co-leader with me. We had 4 boys from the class. Josh and one other were quite easy. The other two... well let's just say it's a good thing the group had 2 chaperon's! They were all over the place.

One of the boys wanted to see if he could make the skunk spray so he was trying to kick his cage. Luckily I stopped him. The strange thing is, he wasn't being mean or anything when he kicked the cage... he wasn't trying to torment the poor skunk, he just wanted to see what it would be like. I was a bit perplexed, simply because he seemed to have no thought about actions/consequences. It made me very grateful to have two boys that are generally well behaved and seem to be able to connect the dots.... most of the time.

We had a great time and we were all pooped in the car ride on the way home. Sam fell asleep, Josh played his DS and we made it home before the Atlanta traffic became a nightmare.

Both the boys are still talking about how much fun they had. We have been here before but last time Sam was barely 1. I don't even think he was walking yet. So, we've added that to the list of things to do when Nanny and Grandad.