Field Trip to the Baltimore Museum of Industry

This past Friday I went on a field trip with Harper to the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

I'd heard from several people who'd gone before that this was a cool field trip so I was looking forward to spending the day there with my buddy. Our bus left around 9:30 am and we were at the museum a little before 10. We unloaded and went inside where we hung our coats, dropped our lunches off and then broke into three groups. We were group C and our first station was, according to the teachers, the most fun one of the day.

We were taken into a room where we learned about early car production and how things were done on an assembly line. The presentation was short but informative and then each child was given a task that they would have to complete in order to build a paper car. It was cool to see each child learn and then perform their given task and while the assembly line started slowly, once each child understood their role, it moved quickly and efficiently. Harper's job was to fold a part of the car that would end up being the back and front windows plus the top section. Some kids had to stamp the wheels, some had to place brads into the holes for the tires, some had to slide straws onto the front or back as bumpers...there were several jobs to produce each car and each child was able to participate. It was a cool activity and fun to see them working together.

This is the finished product:

As we were busy building our cars we got a phone call from the county saying that due to impending snow, schools were going to close 2 hours early. Unfortunately it meant that as soon as we all finished our first station we were rushed to lunch and then loaded back on the buses to head back to school. Our school buses had to get back because they drive for all the schools and since high school would be getting out right after noon, the buses had to get back in time to pick them up. It was an abrupt end to our field trip which really sucked but I was thankful later on when we were all home and the snow started. It wasn't a lot but it did make the roads a bit icy. I'm not sure when he'll have another field trip but I hope that I'll get to go with him!