Friday, October 10, 2008

Field Trip Mania!

We are just a few days into October and Evan has already had two field trips! The first one was a shorter one to an aquarium. It was a neat trip, though, because one of the aquarium employees talked to the group about animals and other things at the sea shore. Evan showing off a feather - something that can be found at the sea shore

Then he brought out some animals to let us all look at and touch if we wanted to. Evan liked looking, but only touched the sea star. Evan checking out a hermit crab

I was taking pictures, but I touched the last animal, a sea urchin.
Yesterday the most of the class took a DART train to the Dallas Zoo. (A few just met us at the zoo.) Joel got to join us on this adventure, too. We almost didn't make it to the train on time. We ran across the parking lot and then up a long ramp. (Thank goodness I have been working out or I would not have survived.) When we got up there one train pulled out. The other train was on the other side of the tracks and I couldn't figure out how to get there. As I was trying to figure it out, it pulled out. I looked around desperately and didn't see anyone from the class. I didn't know what to do! We were running to get tickets and get to the train on time, so I didn't check the map and had no idea what train to get on or which direction to go. Just before I panicked, I saw the group at the other end of the platform. WHEW!! They were almost on that train, but they got off because we weren't there yet. In my defense, when I joined them on the platform I checked the clock and it was 9:11am. We had planned on taking the 9:15 train, so I was on time and if they had taken that train it would have been on an earlier one than scheduled.

The train ride gave me a chance to catch my breath, which was nice. Once we got to the zoo we met up with the rest of the class, took a bathroom break, got a scavenger hunt sheet, and went to the monorail. After the monorail we split up and just went around the zoo. This field trip lasted the whole school day, but it was still a quick trip around the zoo. It worked out alright for me since I didn't get to the gym, but I still got a good workout trying to get us all over so that we could complete the all-important scavenger hunt so that Evan could get the all-important prize. The boys had a great time looking at the animals and learning more about them.

Before we went all Joel could talk about was the gorilla. Would it be angry? Would it be silly? What would it do? When could we see it? As you might imagine, the first thing we did after the monorail was go to the gorilla exhibit. That is probably my favorite part of the Dallas Zoo, so I was glad to share it with the boys. I was really hoping that the gorillas would be out and we did get to see two of them! One of them was walking around and pretty close up. The other one was sleeping with his back to us, but he still counts.
Evan's favorite animal was the cheetah. There's only one and it is in a smaller cage, so we did get to see it. I prefer open spaces for the animals, but we never did see the cheetahs at the National Zoo, so I guess the cages have some benefits for us.Anyway, that is a recap of our first two field trips. There will be more field trips to come, so stay tuned!

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