Port Discovery Field Trip

Today I went with the Kindergarten classes to Port Discovery (or Port Scovery as Dakota calls it) in Baltimore. I enjoy going on field trips with the kids but the thought of this trip was making me a bit nervous because it's a big place with lots of rooms and a HUGE climbing structure with several entrances and exits on three different floors. But, I figured I could handle it and it'd only be a couple hours so I signed myself up to chaperone.

We left the school around 9:30 am and the kids were just a bit crazy excited. They were supposed to have this trip back in January but it was cancelled due to bad weather so they've been waiting to go for nearly two months now. I know it's all Dakota's been talking about this week so imagine that times 60-70 kids...they were pumped. Traffic in the city was heavy but we managed to get to the museum right around 10 and they were off and running.

Our first stop was at the Royal Farms Convenience Store. There are non-working soda and slushie machines, pretend refrigerators/freezers with bottles of water and orange juices, and many frozen food selections. There was a pretend ATM machine, a little gas station where the kids could pretend to air up car tires and put gas in the gas tank. Dakota liked filling up her shopping basket and then sorting it into fruits/veggies/protein etc. The kids also enjoyed taking turns ringing each other up at the cash registers.

When they'd finished in the convenience store we found a little building table. Dakota took a little time trying to make a cube; she loves to build. 

Next to the building table was a "rock wall" where they could climb across and push blinking buttons as they went along. It was quite crowded so the girls didn't last long in there. 

We were at this widgits table for a good while. The kids had to find the shape that fit into the widgit as they moved along on a conveyor belt. I don't know how long the belt ran, maybe a minute before it stopped and showed them their scores. They loved it!

In the Wonders of Water room the girls made a giant bubble, played with boats and created waterways with adjustable "walls", attempted to build a fountain with PVC pipes and even washed the windows with some spray bottles and squeegees. 

One of the little girls in my group kept asking me if we could go find the zombies. I had no idea what she was talking about but as we walked by Adventure Expeditions she screamed "This is it! This is where the zombies are!" and in we went. Turns out that there aren't zombies in there but there was a mummy and they were all a little bit afraid. The one who was most afraid was the one who'd been begging to find the zombies and she cried and clung to my arm until we'd made it safely outside the exhibit. Kids are so funny! Dakota was surprisingly brave though and led the way through the darkened corridor with pure confidence. She kept telling the girls behind her that everything was ok and to follow her; I was impressed. Also, this part of the museum housed Dakota's absolute favorite activity which was a small bridge that you had to cross by pulling on a rope. I don't know what she found so fascinating about that bridge but she absolutely loved pulling herself (and anyone who'd let her) across.

Another activity that Dakota loved was using the crane. There were magnetic boxes that would hook onto a magnetic pulley and using a steering wheel the kids could raise the box up where another child could remove the box. We had to work on our turn taking skills for this activity because all they wanted to do was turn that darned steering wheel. 

They did several other activities that I didn't get photo's of but when they weren't engaged in a room they could be found running around in the Kid Works Urban Treehouse. It's a huge climbing structure that takes up the entire center of the building. It's three stories high and extremely hard to find kids in. I did my best to keep an eye on them while they were in the tree house but there were a few times I was sure I'd lost them all forever. Eventually they'd turn up on one of the three floors and I'd run to catch them before they all disappeared back into the depths of that monster. 

Our lunch time wasn't until noon and we were due back on the bus at 12:45 pm. The kids were pretty tired after running around for a few hours and lunch was relatively quiet. We got back to the school around 1:45 and I ended up bringing both Harper and Dakota home since it was so near the end of the day. Given the chance to do this field trip again I think I'd pass. It's a little stressful trying to watch kids run around that place and when they each want to do different things it makes for a lot of whining. I did my best to make sure they all got to do what they wanted and they all seemed happy but it was stressful.