Day at the Museum

Wednesday dawned bright and early for my fourth grade class as we gathered at 6:00 a.m. to board the bus for our final field trip of the year. Where were we headed? To Discovery Place in Charlotte, North Carolina, three hours away. 

Every year I begin planning this trip in March, and every year I am amazed at level of ease that this trip comes together. I NEVER have trouble finding enough chaperones. In fact, this year I had a nearly 1:1 parent/student ratio. And with this being Lucia's fourth grade year, I asked Andy to be our bus driver. He agreed.

 Even at 6:00 a.m. everyone SEEMED bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We circled up for a prayer, climbed in the bus, got the kids settled and began our pleasant marathon day.

Here are some of the highlights of our day at the museum.
 

Our handsome bus driver

Happy Trails

Lucia pulling the high rope

Daddy pulling the low rope

Andy challenged Lucia to a rope pulling contest in which two ropes were attached to a lever. Lucia won with a little help from a chaperone who couldn't bear to see her lose. I'm not sure if Andy was giving it his "all" or not.

The bed of nails

The bed of long nails

Ugly frog from the front

Ugly frog from the back

Students enjoyed visiting the museum's rain forest and aquarium where they could pet a ball python from West Africa as well as some small marine animals such as hermit crabs and horseshoe crabs.


The students had a great time with all the hands-on exhibits. There was an area for duct tape creations, an area for stop-motion movies, building with wood, aluminum foil art as well as simple machines such as levers and pulleys.

Lucia's stop motion movie.

We also visited their Imax theater which held a three story dome screen that warranted gasps, oohs and ahhs from the group.

When we pulled into our school parking lot at 5:45 p.m. there were many happily worn out children, almost as many happily exhausted parents, a done bus driver and one fourth grade teacher thankful for yet another memorable trip to  Discovery Place.