I love field trips!
While our little knights' grandparents were in town for Easter, we took the opportunity to act like tourists in our own town. This meant going to a family farm to pick strawberries and visiting the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. Most fun I've had in one weekend in forever!
Reagan is really cool, but I was even more excited about their George Washington exhibit since Gilgamesh has been learning about him in school. It all started with a simple reading assignment in the Children's Book of Virtues.
We read the fable about George Washington and the cherry tree. "I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree." The story made it even more intense by explaining that the cherry tree was special to his father in all his orchards and George was just swinging around a shiny new hatchet he'd been given. The story affected Gilgamesh and he was excited to see pictures of George Washington on our placemat of presidents. His interest led me to buy a DK early reader about George Washington's life. It was only $3.99!! There's a brief biography on the man and also an intro to US Revolutionary War history, which is really cool. All this was great preparation for seeing the awesome exhibit on George Washington. They have life-sized replicas of him at different ages. The guy was 6'2" and spent his teens learning to survey land. It's no wonder he lost his teeth and had to wear hippo-teeth dentures.
This was our first venture into biographies. Coupling it with a field trip to a huge museum/library was really cool. Although... I have to admit that Gilgamesh was even more excited about Air Force One and all of President Ronald Reagan's jars of jelly bellies.
Been on any field trips lately? We're always looking for more fun opportunities to get out of the 'schoolroom'.
