Field Trippin'

Have I ever mentioned that I love Western Washington? Seattle is just about my favorite place. Yesterday was a joy getting to share a small piece of that with the third graders from my school.

For my first ever field trip as a teacher, we took the third grade classes to the University of Washington campus in Seattle. We spent the first hour and a half in small groups exploring the campus. My group happen to all be ELL students. We had an awesome time looking for plaques outside of buildings, statues, and objects around campus. They were so motivated by the new environment that they were willing to read just about anything we found!

Here we are at one of our favorite findings of the day. You can't see the statue because it's high up but it was of George Washington. This was the first thing our group visited. These three were so proud of themselves for reading both plaques.

This is me with a few kids inside the beautiful Suzzallo Library. This building is home to one of the world's biggest books called the Bhutan. Fun fact: it is printed with a gallon of ink on a roll of paper longer than a football field and weighs 133 pounds. The book is kept outside one of my other favorite spots, the Graduate Reading Room. It is listed as one of the 50 most amazing university libraries in the world, and for good reason.

(Not my photo, click on it for photo credit.)

Later we got a tour of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. The exhibit we took part in was called Pacific Voices. The kids learn about seventeen different Pacific Rim cultures including ones from Washington State. They also got to take a close look at some Northwest Coast Native art. 

This a craft students made during a mini lesson on traditional salmon fishing in the Pacific Northwest. It's a mini model of a traditional net.This one is actually my unfinished model. We discovered that this craft might have been a little too tricky for our kiddos but they still had a good time using their hands and learning about the history of the area.

Unfortunately because of some hiccups with our bus schedule, the time in the museum got cut pretty short. But I'm thankful the kids at least got some exposure to a college campus and some history. Not to mention, I had a great time spending time with the kids after being out of their classroom the last few weeks. 

PS. In case you are wondering, I know there are no hearts over the faces in the first photo but in my opinion they are small enough they wont do any harm.