4 week field trip

We are coming down the home stretch of our 4 week field trip. We've visited a variety of historical and informational sites.

I don't know how you quantify this type of learning.

Here's a few pictures from our trip.

This is the view from our balcony in Basye, Virginia.












We spent an afternoon at the Hall of Valor Civil War Museum. They show a movie called the Field of Lost Shoes. It was very powerful.

We visited the Shenandoah Caverns. It was an awe inspiring experience.




Our youngest daughter played hoops at Colonial Williamsburg.




Here we are at a drive through zoo call Virginia Safari Park. It's hard to get an emu's head out of your minivan when he knows you have grain in there.



Here our oldest daughter is using a foot pump wood lathe at the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia. Call ahead and reserve a golf cart. It is worth the $10 rental and makes the whole trip more fun.



We spent Memorial Day at Patrick Henry National Memorial called Red Hill.


Here we are picking strawberries somewhere near Lynchburg, Virginia.



President Bush's motorcade passed us on the street in Washington, DC. We could see him wave through the tinted glass of the window. Boy, he doesn't travel light. Here's a few of his escorts.


And, of course we visited the Smithsonians. I must say I was quite disappointed in the Museum of Natural History. It was so noisy and chaotic. We enjoyed the art museums more.




We learned a trick to getting in more quickly to the Library of Congress. We waited in line to go through security for over 30 minutes or more. Later we learned that The Library of Congress is connected to the Madison building by a tunnel. There is no line to go through security at the Madison building.

Our favorite museum thus far is the International Spy Museum in DC. I learned quite a bit about D-day and other historical events that I hadn't heard before.

I'm planning on reinforcing some of the things we learned by working with the girls to make a photo album of the trip.

Back to the question, how do you quantify an education? I don't know if anything we saw will impact how well my children will color in the right circle on a standardized test. I do know that this trip will influence the kind of adults my children will become and how they will think about the world.

I should add that we saw quite a few school groups in DC. While I don't think that is a bad thing, I wonder how much the children gain when they a herded through the exhibits in adolescent hordes. It is the adult interaction that makes the trip meaningful. (Also, teen IQ goes down when they are in a group.)

Though, I think my six year old is feeling a little herded right now. We've had to work at keeping things interesting for her. I would give her the camera from time to time and it helped keep my youngest daughter more engaged. A few well place pieces of candy didn't hurt either.



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