Thursday, July 31, 2014

The Museum of Natural History and a random squirrel

Yesterday at camp we took a field trip to The Museum of Natural History. This was a trip for the whole camp. So we had groups 1-4 campers and staff. We used public transportation (two trains) to get to the museum. It took us a little over an hour to get there. When we got there the group leader for my group (G1A) split the kids up between our 4 staff members. I had five kids to look after and walk around the museum with. I didn't get to take any pictures because I wanted to be able to keep up with the kids.
The first section we went to was Natural Histories. It was a long hallway of pictures of a bunch of animals that used to exist. They thought some of them was cool but others were ugly. When I could keep there attention on one picture for more than three seconds I read to them the descriptions of the animals and insects.
The next section we went to was Northwest Coast Indians and saw the Indian men and women (still figures) working and preparing food. As we walked down the hall we saw a few masks and then the kids pretended to be one of the bird mask and tried to scare each other. When I got them to stop making faces and growling at each other we got to see some hand crafted swords. The boys were excited about them but the girls continued on to look at something else.
Then we went into the North American Forests section. The kids got to see animals in their different habitats. When they saw squirrels and snakes they pointed them out and called my name repeatedly to show me. That morning I coincidentally took a picture of a squirrel eating a granola bar and I showed it to them after the third fake squirrel. They also got to see what a mosquito looks like in an enlarged replica. I even got to introduce them to a few new insects like beetles and centipedes. They thought it was gross and all said "Ewwwww!".
The last section we went to was the Hall of Biodiversity. Not much about this part of our tour we just sat at the desks and watched a few videos on climate change and plants and animals. We more than anything used this section for resting since we'd been walking around for an hour. When they were paying attention to the videos and not pushing each other off the bench they seemed to be into it. They paid the most attention to a video about growing potatoes.
After we finished watching the videos I realized it was almost time to meet up with everyone so I took them to the bathroom. When they finished we went to the Cullman Hall of the Universe which is where everyone was to meet up. After waiting for 20 minutes for the rest of the groups to come we were then all able to make our way back to the school.
Squirrel eating a granola bar.

Squirrel now running away because I got to close.

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