3rd Grade Field Trip

I joined Kaylen's 3rd grade field trip last week. It's the first time I've gone on one of her field trips, so it was a new experience for me. This trip was to the Science Center of Iowa, in downtown Des Moines. I was surprised by how many chaperones there were, and it worked out great. I was paired with another mom, and there were 4 kids in our group. We all had schedules for which section we were supposed to be in when, what time lunch was, etc. It was a very well-oiled machine! :)

We first went into the Lost Egypt exhibit. They had a camel to climb on, info on how they built the pyramids, and a few mummies and info about them, including the beliefs about the objects they were buried with and why. They also had a great big replica of the Rosetta stone. Kaylen and a friend on the camel:

Then we went upstairs for the hands-on section (lego car racing, paper rocket-building, Egg dropper, keystone-bridge building, etc. Got a cute photo of Kaylen and some friends setting up the keystone bridge:

It turned out to be a nice (even hot!) day, so the kids had lunch outside on the grassy lawn. Then we went back upstairs to explore the rest of the upstairs basically the reptile room. But this room also has a weather room for one of the local TV stations. Since it was 12:30-1, they weren't on the noon news, but they did the weather-now segment while Kaylen and her friends were there. They posted it online that afternoon, here. Kaylen's on the far right, kneeling in the front row, with a reddish shirt. Notice what she's doing when the camera comes back on them after the weather maps - goofball!

We finished off the trip with the entire 3rd grade in the star theater. They've been learning about the moon, stars, and planets in their science classes recently, so it was kind of neat hearing them in unison answering the SCI staff's questions as she presented. It was also neat seeing the diagrams of the moon and stars, planets, constellations, etc. At the end of the star presentation, they had a show on the screen that seemed like you were riding down a water slide. She warned us before she started us that if you start getting dizzy, to just close your eyes or look down. Yup, I couldn't handle it - started getting my motion-sick headache, so had to look down. Then all the kids started an "Again" chant, so had to do it again. Ahhhh... the kids all love it! :)

After the star theater, we helped the kids get lined up with their class, and back on the buses, and that was it. A fun time was had by all!