Just the girls...and other kids

I had the wonderful privilege of accompanying my sweet daughter on not just one, but TWO field trips a couple of weeks ago!

The first trip was with 6 classes of 4th graders and we all headed to Old Salem, NC (just a mere 2 hour bus trip on school activity buses...containing 40+ 9 year olds...). I was given charge over 6 kids and they really were a great group. We got to wander around the beautiful and quaint town and learn about the history of Old Salem. I didn't take many pictures, but here are the few I snapped:

Not sure why, but many of the porches were raised with these little cut-outs below. Had to get a picture with all the kids jammed into one.

One of the favorite stops in the town - the water pump! All the kids got to pump the handle to make the water flow and lots of them took drinks as well.

One really cool part of the day was learning how to play games that kids used to play way back in the day (like in the very late 1700's-early 1800's??) Above is Katey mastering one of them and below are many of the kids trying out different things. These were all harder than they look!

While I didn't get any pictures of the buildings, they were beautiful! And, we got to go into the tavern. For me it was the most fascinating stop on the tour. The tavern used to be run by the Moravian Church (who, incidentally, ran the entire town!) and it was the local bar as well as hotel. George Washington stayed there for 2 nights when he was president. Pretty cool! Katey says her favorite part was the BAKERY! She is officially in love with the chocolate pound cake that they sell. :-)

So, the very next day Katey and I headed to Peachland, NC with her Sunday School class. We got to see all sorts of cool things like:

An amazon parrot

A miniature horse that liked to buck and kick

A cute little ferret

A python and other snakes which make my skin crawl. Katey refuse to touch them. That's my girl!! (In case you were wondering, I did touch the python. And my skin crawled the entire time.)

Jacob's sheep (the kids were chasing them, trying to catch one. Did you know that sheep run really fast? Faster than kids.)

How to spin the wool of the Jacob's sheep. Very cool.

The chicken house. One barn contained around 20,000 chickens. Did you know that chickens stink? Really, really stink.

Katey's favorite part of the trip to the farm was climbing on a tree house ladder that was there as well as riding on the miniature horse. My favorite part was watching all the faces of the kids as they experienced so many cool things. That and passing out the hand sanitizer. :-)

Thus ended the weekend of field trips but we had such a wonderful time on both adventures and enjoyed spending time with Katey's friends!

E-I-E-I-EOG's...

What a week!

North Carolina does state End Of Grade (EOG) testing for grades 3-8 and the schools get a little...um...Nazi-esque while the kids are testing. Katey has been nervous about these tests for an entire year! This week she got to finally put them behind her.

This year it was decided that getting the Kindergartners out of the school during testing would be a great idea. So, I got to accompany Seth's class on field trips for 3 days in a row!!! That is a lot of field trip fun, let me tell you! The kids did great and the weather was good. By the last day though, all the teachers and parent volunteers were glad that school would resume as normal on Friday! So, here is the quick recap:

Tuesday:
Katey took her Reading EOG which was the one she was looking least forward to. While she LOVES reading, she doesn't enjoy reading snippets and answering comprehension questions about them.

Seth and I (and the other 18 kids in the class...and other 100 Kindergartners!!) went to a petting zoo/farm of sorts. We learned about horses and got to help groom them, we saw fun animals like zebras, pigs, camels, cows, giant bunnies, wallabies, chicks and turkeys. We also got to take a hay ride. Overall it was a fun time! Here are some shots from the day:

Megan, Alyssa, JaQuan, Haily and Seth - what a cute group of kids!

Wednesday:
Katey took her Math, calculator active EOG and thinks she did well.
Seth and I got to spend 3 hours at a local park then headed to the library for a tour and reading time. It was a great day, very relaxing for the adults and fun for the kids. I really enjoyed spending time getting to know Seth's teacher better.

Thursday:
Katey took the Math, calculator inactive EOG and was happy that it was a short test...and the last one!!!
Seth, Mike and I got to head to Cane Creek Park and rotate between fun activities like frisbee, bubbles, sack races, nature walks, playground and beach-ball volleyball. Seth LOVED that Mike was able to come to this field trip and was super excited that he got to try his hand at "skip rocking" - an activity he had been dying to try. (That would be skipping rocks on a lake, in case you were wondering)


As a reward for EOG's Katey got to choose a special treat. We thought she would decide to go to her favorite restaurant, Nothin' But Noodles, but she surprised us and asked for the 7 pound chocolate cake from Costco!! We got to enjoy it with Grammy and Granny & Papaw on Friday evening- an extra special treat for all of us!

Duh!

Seth's class took a trip to the Charlotte Children's Theater last week. We were walking home from the bus stop that day when the following conversation occurred:

Mom: Seth, how was your field trip today?
Seth: I didn't go on a field trip, Mommy.
Mom: Yes you did, you went to the Children's Theater, remember?
Seth: That wasn't a field trip, Mommy. We didn't go to a FIELD!

At this point it dawned on me that all other "field trips" Seth has attended have, in fact, been to places with fields. Gotta love the logic of this kid!!