Field Trips

Last week, Adam had two field trips. The entire fourth grade class went to Reed Gold Mine where they were having Carolina Heritage Days. Reed Gold Mine is the site of the first documented gold find in the United States. There were several special exhibits set up for Carolina Heritage Days. Like this guy ...

The bucket was used in a fire brigade.

As soon as Adam saw this guy, he said, "Look, a pirate!" and he was serious. To say his class was not prepared for what they were going to see on the field trip is an understatement.

And this ...



...this sufficiently scared one of the girls in my group...the one who had wondered off every time I turned around. The one was not dressed appropriately and only wanted to stand in the sun.

We did pan for gold.



We learned that all of the gold that has been found would fit inside the elementary school gym. I was surprised by that. Adam found a fleck of gold.

A teeny, tiny fleck.

Adam and a friend.

We also toured the mine. My favorite parts of the tour went something like this, "This is an air hammer. It wasn't used at this mine." and "This is an escape ladder. It wasn't here during the time they were mining." Um, so the escape ladder is for our benefit? Great.

The next day the fourth grade AIG kids went on a tour of Historic Concord. They had just finished a study on architecture. The teacher had prepared a scavenger hunt for the kids. They were to find certain architectural features on the houses and buildings. Each feature was worth a certain amount of points and the group who had the most points at the end of the day won a pizza party with the teacher.

The kids took the scavenger hunt very seriously.

We also had a geocaching riddle to solve. My group worked together very well. Instead of finding a treasure, the kids were led to historic markers on the sides of buildings.







We took a tour of the Old Courthouse. The first floor of the courthouse had been converted into an art gallery and the second floor into a theatre. We toured the Museum and the Memorial Gardens where the roses were in bloom.



After a trip to the Creamery for ice cream and the Chocolatier, we were all to meet in front of the library. The teacher was collecting everyone's responsibility slips, scavenger hunt sheets and geocaching information. She did all of this right under this sign.

Too funny.

At the end of this week, I head out with Andrew. Every year the kindergarteners take their mothers to a local park for a Mother's Day Picnic.