3rd Grade Field Trip

I typically don't go on school field trips because they are usually on Fridays and since I really only work on Mon. and Fri., I don't ask for it off. This field trip sounded fun and Kendal really wanted me to go with her so I took the day off to go with her and I am so glad I did!

While I could have followed the buses there, Kendal begged me to ride on the bus with her so to make her happy and to save on gas, I did. It occurred to me as I was walking up the steps of the bus that it has probably been about TWENTY!!! years since I have been on a school bus. After the horrible flashback of high school that I had, I thought to myself, "Man, I am old!!!" The ride could have been worse, we had to pull over on the highway because a kid on the bus behind us threw up. Thankfully, that didn't happen on our bus! I don't do vomit unless it's my own child's and even then it's dicey! I was able to have some adult conversation with some other moms on the bus, but that is a little hard when you're crammed like sardines (3 to a seat) on a bus with 40ish 3rd graders. I was more than happy when we reached our destination!!

The field trip was at Elm Fork Education Center at UNT and it was a lot of fun.

The trip started in their Sky Theater which was a room with theater style seating and a domed ceiling where they went through the solar system and everything astronomy. Of course, in a dark room with your head laying back against the seat so you can watch the "show" on the ceiling makes one (this one) very sleepy. :)

Next, they went on an archaeological dig. The kids were taken to a room where a grid was taped to the floor and they were told how it is labeled and what to do on an excavation site. Then they were taken outside where there was a grid in the sand and they were assigned a grid square to dig for an artifact.

she was very meticulous in her digging

writing in her journal where in her grid the artifact was located

examining her artifact to write down important info about it

Next, they went to a room with a bunch of fun crazy kind of stuff in it.

brain teaser puzzles

triangle mirror where there are hundreds of you

thank goodness there is just one of her :)

pedaling the bike to turn on the light bulb

Next they were sent on a "Crow Creek Quest" which involved finding 12 different statues, like the Northern Bobwhites or the Black Tailed Prairie Dogs or the Black-tailed Jackrabbits, and reading their plaques about them and answer the question in their journal about each one.

girls being silly

Their last adventure of the day sent them on an Aquatic Invertebrate study. After discussing what invertebrates are and seeing some, they were given little nets and sent off to find some. Their options to search in were a pond, stream, waterfall and wetland.

Searching through their muck to see if they found anything. They ended up finding some form of a snail (I thought it was a pebble HA!) and a dragonfly nymph.

Kendal holding the dragonfly nymph. EEEWWWWW!!!!!!

bus ride back to school

The kids were well behaved and everyone in Kendal's class seemed to really enjoy it. I even had a good time, but I was definitely glad it was over and ready to get back to the school.

Until next time...

Pumpkin Patch and Football

Because of the ridiculous amount of rain we have gotten this month, we didn't get to do our traditional bazillion trips to the Pumpkin Patch. :( We probably wouldn't have gone at all were it not for this spontaneous trip one Friday after school with some friends. I was hoping that it wouldn't be too messy muddy since we had gone a few days without rain, but it was still pretty icky. We couldn't even do the hayride, the girls fave, because the ground was too mushy.

house of pumpkins

they had a lot of fun on the merry-go-round, which is where Kendal and Keely spent the bulk of the trip

the haystack maze was a lot of fun for them as well, but it was very muddy in there and the slide they were supposed to go down to get out was a MUUUUDDDDYYY, nasty mess so I wouldn't let them go down it so they had to worm their way through a very awkward space

Bsyn got a shoe in the face...can you tell!?!

the whole motley crew when leaving, they were quite filthy (although it's hard to tell here)

I'm glad we got in at least one trip to the patch, but bummed that that is all we got to do. Hopefully it won't be so rainy next year!!

We got home to clean up some, change out of the muddy clothes and clean as much mud of their sneakers as I could (they went in the washer later) so we could go to the HS football game. Kendal has been asking to go since she started Kindergarten, but we never seemed to make it to a game so this year we said we were going to go. Our first attempt to go to one got rained out, but our second attempt...no rain (yay!), but a little chilly.

yummy football game nachos (bleh!)

Jeff laughed at me when I packed up three blankets, but us wimpy girls put them to use

Bsyn made it through half-time, which I think the girls enjoyed more than the game itself, but fell asleep on daddy soon after the third quarter started. Kendal started having a meltdown because SHE dropped her Sprite under the bleachers so we left before the third quarter was over. Overall, everyone had a good time and want to go to another game. Maybe next time we'll make it to the end of the game. :)