A Quest for Shark's Teeth - An Educational Outing

It all started a few weeks ago when I bought the kids some shark books from a yardsale.  Alpha Boy immediately claimed them for his personal book box. 

The LSG Kids, my niece and nephew, on an anchor outside of the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland.

One day Alpha Boy was looking at the shark books and we were discussing facts about them.  I had told him that they are always losing their teeth and that there was a place nearby (well about an hour away) that we could go and find some.  And keep them. 

You how you can tell your kids something and then you see a certain light in their eyes and total excitement?  This was one of those moments.  I knew that really wanted to make this happen. 


Today was the day.  I took my kids, my niece and nephew and off we went.  An hour away, 5000 punch buggies, 2 million yellow cars (you had to be there) and 2 quiet game winners later we were there. 

Arrr matey!

Our first stop was the Calvert Marine Museum (which is very inexpensive BTW).  I thought we'd be in and out in 30 minutes tops.  Boy was I wrong, the kids loved it here plus there was lots of stuff to do. 

Looking at the sting rays and skates up close.

We started off looking at the sting rays and skates.  There are very cool.  I got to tell the kids how I caught a skate years ago when I was fishing in the bay with friends.  : )  We got to see skate eggs, which was REALLY cool! 

The boys playing with an interactive trivia game screen.

Lots to see and learn!

The life cycle of a skate egg.

Real live skate eggs.  This picture doesn't do this exhibit justice.  It was really neat how you could actually see the babies moving inside the eggs.  Have you ever seen an egg like this?

 They had an awesome mural which captured Little Bit's attention.

Next we went to the discovery room.  I think we were in there like an hour or so.  There were sea hermit crabs, star fish, turtles and other cool critters.  There was a light house and a really cool boat the kids could go in.  The very best part of that room was the Dig Area where the kids could look for fossils and teeth.  And keep them.  One per kid to be exact.  Alpha Boy hardly left this spot other than running back and forth to ask the lady at the desk "Hey, what is this?" 

The Lil' Chef checking out a small diamond back turtle.

One of the tanks in the discovery room, that contains star fish, sea hermit crabs and several other critters.

Alphaboy was so content to stay at the Dig Area and dig and dig and dig!  The kids could keep one fossil of their choosing.  After finding several things worth to keep he finally settled on a Tiger Shark's tooth.

We got to walk thru the rest of the museum looking the different exhibits, including the many aquariums.  We got to see blue crabs, sea horses, lots of fish and my personal favorite, the jellyfish.  I was asking my little peeps, "How can anyone look at these jellyfish and wonder if there is a God?"  God is just such an awesome Creator! 

Just one of the neat exhibits we saw.

This was a HUGE case full of different fossils, sharks teeth and such.

  

At the museum they have an open window to one of the labs. The kids learned ALOT.  She showed us how to tell the age of a whale by looking at parts of it's spine.
This women reminded me of my grandma because of her accent.  Come to find out they were both from Munich, Germany.  I told her, "I knew I recognized that accent anywhere."



How can one look at this thing and not KNOW there is a Creator.  I mean, REALLY??

Maryland is know for it's Blue Crabs (and Old Bay).

nce we walked outside we were greeted by two ADORABLE otters!  I contemplaited how I could take one home with me. I could have just sat there forever and watched these playful little guys. 

I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the otters.

We also enjoyed the view from the lower level of the light house that is at the museum.  The top was closed for lunch and we didn't get to make it back.  After the light house, we got to check out lots of really neat boats, some old and some really really old. 


This was a neat little light house, I really wish we could have gone all the way up.

Checking out some old boat.  One of the boats was a two log canoe from the mid 1800's.

Before we left I asked a lady that worked at the museum how far it was to one of the state parks that we were going to go to for sharks teeth.  I also inquired about how far of a walk it was from the car to the actual beach (one place was like 2 miles!!).  This super kind lady told us just to go to her beach.  she offered for us to just park in her driveway so we wouldn't get towed.  Her beach was free and about a 3 minute walk from her house.  She was SO nice.  She even offered for us to just go inside her porch and grab some shark's teeth that they had if we didn't find any.  I really couldn't believe how nice this lady was. 

We were all having so much fun, nobody wanted to leave. 

We really enjoyed the beach, other than a kind older man that helped us find shark's teeth we had the beach to ourselves.  None of us wanted to leave, myself included.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.

On the way home we stopped for sundae's.  It was supposed to be the prize for the quiet game winners but instead everyone got one.  Well except for Little Bits, he had already drifted blissfully off to sleep. 



I really just thought we'd go and dig in the sand for a bit.  I never imagined how cool the museum would be or how much we would learn.  I thought we were just taking the day off but actually it turned into quite the little science lesson.

It was a good day!

This post is linked up over at Let's Hit the Road - Field Trip Blog Hop!  Great blog for the field trip enthusiast!

Six Flags: Read to Succeed!

I was delighted to see that a friend of mine had posted this link on my facebook page today!  (thanks Danielle!!)

I had heard of the Read to Succeed program that Six Flags sponsers last year but was too late to sign up.  This year we are all signed up and ready to READ!!

The basics of the program are this, you log six hours of recreational reading that your K-6th graders do between now and March 4th and Six Flags sends them a F R E E ticket to your near by park!  What a deal! What a deal!!

You an read the specifics and sign up HERE!

Day at the Museum (Full Screen Edition)

This past weekend we, as a family went downtown to the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC.  It was a blessing for the hubs to be with us because usually our museum type trips are during the week when he is working. 

Checkin' out the butterflies.

Hey Dum-Dum, we got gum-gum!

We had up finished our MFW curriculum a few weeks ago so I let each of the kids pick a topic to study for the next 3 weeks as we finished up our core stuff (reading, riting and rithmetic).   My 3 year old, of course chose dinosaurs!  So, after our week long study I thought it would be appropriate to go see some dinosaur bones.  The kids really enjoyed the 'hall of dinosaurs."  Beings that we had just studied dinos, I was able to discuss facts and falsehoods with them and see how much they had really learned.  I have to say it was a blessing to hear how much they had retained.  They remembered alot of the different dino's names, they of course know that dino's were part of God's Creation and they didn't evolve over millions of years.

My son love the T Rex!

The Triceratops is my favorite dino!

I was kind of concerned about taking the kids into a secular museum that does not value the truth of God's word even a little bit, but it was a good opportunity to discuss what God's word says.  We skipped the evolution halls because quite frankly I don't think I could have stomached all the pictures of apes turning into men.  Umm, Excuse me Mr. Scientist, but if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes???

Anyway, on to the rest of our day.  We got to see oodles and oodles of birds, which we all loved.  We saw lots of butterflies, sea creatures, a coral reef and the mammals hall which had a newer modern style.  Personally, I liked the good old animals in their natural habitats better, the hubs always says that I am old before my time, I guess he is right.  We were there for a little less than two hours because we had to rush back to the van to pay the meter, they only give you 2 hours and the last time I was in DC to do the museums I got 2, yes 2, $50 parking tickets.  The hubs was adamant that we not let that happen again.

The Hall of Birds was neat, we all really enjoyed this exhibit.

These were TV screens in the floor, which was part of the mammals exhibit.

The cheetah and his lunch.

They did have some pretty cool interactive stuff that the kids really enjoyed.

Checkin' out the mama Kangaroo's pouch.  They remembered what a marsupial was, yay!

A mini coral reef.

No thanks!

The butterfly hatchery.  They have a really cool butterfly garden which we did last Spring. 

                                              

We decided that it was to far to walk back so we decided that we would pack it up and drive over to the Air and Space Museum.  Well, as we were driving we decided to go to the Lincoln Memorial, none of us had ever been.  Honest Abe is my oldest daughter's FAVORITE President, she is like a walking Lincoln Fact Book.  So, she was super excited to say the least.   After circling around 3 times we finally found a parking spot and off we went. 

Like little ducks following their paw. 

This was taken with the Lincoln Memorial behind me looking out at the Washington Monument.

We got to hear a recording of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, I Have A Dream speech.

The Lincoln Memorial was very cool, to stand there and read "Four Score and Seven Years Ago..." was a WOW!  The statue is huge!  After, watching the Night at the Museum II, I couldn't help but think he might hop up and start chatting it up with us : )

The Gettysburg Address.  This picture doesn't do it justice, this wall is HUGE!

Honest Abe.  My daughter reminded me at this point that he was the tallest President ever.  : )

This was inside the Lincoln Memorial.

Close to where we had parked, there was a very large statue of Albert Einstein.  The kids of course wanted so badly to climb all over it but instead I made them smile purdy for the camera!

Hey Einstein! 

If ever in DC, definitely check out the Smithsonian Museums, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument.  I think next time we are going to check out the Spy Museum.

A Beautiful Day at the Zoo

Last Thursday we packed up 3 Moms AND 17 KIDS and went to the Zoo!  We had a great time - things were a little hectic at times (I did tell you we had 17 kids with us right???)  and I still can't fully feel my legs but besides that it was lots of fun!

We went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC.  We saw all kinds of critters, I was bummed that I didn't get to see my favorite animal, the Sloth, but the Puking Monkey (I will be kind and spare you the details!)totally made up for it!  We saw the king of the jungle, a zebra's behind, 3 elephants and a baby octopus!

Two things that enhanced our trip a bit was that we had our handy dandy Zoo Guide from AIG with us and we did some really cool Zoo Scavenger Hunts!

A few pics from our day....

These were taken on the way to the Zoo, about 10 minutes after my younger daughter got sick in the car.  Always a great way to start a field trip.  Praise God for peppermint oils!

My kids trying to wake the tiger.  He was one lazy tiger!  He lifted his head long enough for me to take a picture, then decided he'd had enough and went back to sleep.

The king of the jungle, wouldn't want a close encounter with this guy, he was huge!

We really enjoyed the reptile house.  Little Boy Blue wanted to hit the little turtle and ride the big one!

Some of the kids learning about frogs.

I didn't get a picture of everyone, there are 8 kids missing.

The kids all worn out!

This is my lovely friend, who almost deserves a post all her own, LOL!  I evidentially

 wasn't enough fun for her so she decided to entertain herself by taking pictures of herself on the way home.  I decided to post the least goofy pic of the bunch!  Everyone needs a friend like this!