Field Trip - Planetarium

To celebrate Daddy's birthday and to cap off our Space Unit, we took a trip to the Discovery Museum and Planetarium in Bridgeport, CT.

There was lots to see and touch.  By no means the best museum I've been to... but the kids were entertained.

Excited already... and we're still in the parking lot!

Astronauts Little Man and Big Boy.

 

Driving the Lunar Rover.

Building Moon bases.

Playing with light and reflections.

Playing with colors.

This would be the boys first planetarium experience... and my first since high school (oh so long ago!). They did pretty well.  Not scared of the room or the dark like another little girl (screaming right next to us.  Poor girl.  But I think she did end up enjoying the show).  Having to stay quiet and still was the hardest part- the show was too long by only a few a minutes.  It was a movie called "The Little Star who Could".  One day we'll be back to see some actual constellations and star maps under the planetarium... but this was perfect for now.

Field Trip

I forgot that we are going down to the Jersey Shore this weekend, so our Saturday field trip had to be squeezed in during the week.

We set up a last minute play date / field trip with some friends we haven't seen in a very long time.  We checked out Yale's Peabody Museum... local, small and inexpensive.  It was actually much nicer than I remembered it being (the only other time I was there was when I was working as a job coach for adults with MMR, and the client I had with me that day was only interested in talking about Pontius Pilot, so that limited my enjoyment of the museum).

Big Boy was very excited to find a path of dino prints leading up to the museum entrance.  He even tried matching the stride.  I almost started to tell him how we can guess how tall the dinosaur was by the length of the stride, but I figured that lesson might be over his head at two and a half years old.  I'll just put that in my pocket for later.

Did we learn a lot of new things?  Not really.  We didn't exactly stop to read any plaques or labels.  But we had a great time looking at the different bones of the different dinosaurs and early mammals.  It was very exciting to see the big sharp teeth, the long pointy claws, the big bony plates, et cetera, et cetera. It was a great way to show them what exactly we mean when we talk about digging for dinosaur bones and fossils, and demonstrating just how big is big when we talk about a T-Rex.

The other exhibits there were neat too.  The kids had a blast in the discovery room which had lots to see and feel.  Considering how young all the kids were (the oldest being 4, the youngest 10 months), they all did really well soaking in as much as they are able to as early learners.

Field Trip - Take 2

Since yesterday's field trip was not at all like I expected it to be, we thought we'd try again today.  After sweating our bums off in Church (we figure it's about time we find a church to go to, and it felt great to bring the kids even though they were both sweaty and fussy wiggle worms) we cooled off at home, ate lunch, and headed out to the Durham 4H fair.

Again...not exactly what I'd expected, BUT we got an up and close look at many more animals.  I'm going to give the fair the benefit of the doubt; I'm assuming it was more appealing the day before than it was when we were there (an hour and a half from closing time and after some rain in the afternoon).

It was neat for the boys to see all the animals featured in the books we'd read throughout the week, and the ones that weren't.  Big Boy is totally a Llama and Alpaca fan now.  I'm just going to have to get my hands on some Llama Llama books!

It was awesome to hear Big Boy saying the names of the animals.  His speech bubble (as my mother and I refer to it) has finally popped.  We could tell the desire to talk was there, growing bigger and bigger until it would explode... and it finally has!

Field Trip

Since we are now experts on farm animals... we took a trip to a farm.  The place was a flop.  BUT there were animals and that's what we were there to see.  The tractor was a bonus, and ice cream makes everything better.  So as far as the kids know, the place was awesome. 

Big boy is now a big fan of llamas, so at dinner we read Is Your Mama a Llama? Did you expect any less?  He loved that there was a rooster, and even demonstrated how to walk like one.  He fed the goats and pet them through the fencing.  And was very impressed with the pig.  Little man got a kick out of the animals coming close for food.  I think we may need a pet goat.

Because the trip to the farm was not at all what we expected it to be, we decided we needed to stop at the carnival we passed on our way there.  It was stupid hot, but Big Boy is a big boy now...ugh that kills me... and he had the best time on the rides!

He even sat on a horse on the carousel instead of choosing a boring bench.  And while I rode with him I just HAD to sing our song from our Music Together class this morning:

"Merry go round, merry go round.  Around and around and around....

...The horses go up, and then they go down. Around and around and around."

On the way home we learned there was a 4H fair nearby this weekend.  Planning FAIL.  Now THAT'S where we should have gone! (There's always tomorrow!)