Field Trip to the Planetarium

One day Emma came home from school very excited that her grade was going on a field trip to the planetarium.  She said that parents were allowed to come but that they would have to pay $5.  Emma sweetly told Laura, "If you want to come Mom, I'll pay your $5 for you because you're always paying for me to do fun things."  Laura also sweetly told her that she should invite me (Quinn) instead, since I've never had the pleasure of going on a field trip with our elementary kids.  So I took a half day off and started the adventure.

We hadn't even made it to the bus before I wanted to put some kids in a headlock.  Emma selected her on-again, off-again "boyfriend" Mitchell to be her buddy, so I got to keep track of him too.  Sitting by them on the bus, nearly folded in half so we could fit on the bus seat, was really a slice of heaven.  And the way the girls behind us kept tapping them on the head, and the way I kept telling them to keep their hands to themselves, and the way the mom sitting next to them paid no attention whatsoever because she was glued to her phone...was also magical.

Well, here we are at the planetarium.  I didn't kill either of them along the way.

According to Emma...this was her favorite thing at the planetarium.

Second graders on Mars!

That there's a genuine moon rock.

The main reason for going was to see the IMAX movie "Born to Be Wild."  The second graders had been studying wild animals and had recently finished give their oral reports, so this was a fun way to wrap up the science unit.  The movie was in 3D and was a lot of fun.

The final event was centered around this cool projection globe.  It could be changed to look like the sun, the moon, or the earth.  A planetarium worker taught about all three.  She also passed out remote controls and asked questions for the kids to answer.  It was really cool.

When it was all said and done, it was pretty cool to go to the planetarium, and even more fun for me was to see Emma in her "natural habitat," interacting with friends and classmates.  I don't know how 2nd-grade teachers deal with all the energy (and somewhat peculiar smells) of these kids all day.  The teachers are saints.