The Lee Family: Sofia's Field Trip to the Dallas Arboretum

Yesterday, Sofia and all of her fellow 5th graders went on their second field trip which was to the Dallas Arboretum. I arrived at the Arboretum around 9am and the kids arrived on their buses shortly after that. We entered the Arboretum at the Children's Garden and after all of the kids were separated into their groups with their respective chaperones, we were told to explore and meet in the picnic area at 11:30am for lunch. It ended up being a little chilly and cloudy all day, so it was a perfect day for a field trip! Much better than it being too hot out! Along with Sofia, I had Georgia and Lily in my group and they ended up being the perfect girls to have for the day. I let them decide which way to go and just told them that they had to stay together and keep me in sight, which they did more or less. Of course, Sofia was the one who would "forget" my rules and head off.

We headed for the Walk in the Clouds tree that looks like a tree, but is actually a big play structure with stairs in the truck that leads down to the lower level of the Children's Garden. The girls played on the tree netting before we decided to head downstairs to the T. Boone Pickens Pure Energy Garden, where the girls were able to explore energy and how it is created by wind, sun and water. There are several hands on features that the girls played around on and they all had a lot of fun. Hopefully they actually learned a little too. Of course, there was one of those "wind energy" machines and the girls climbed into it machine to test it out. They loved it, of course! I got a few cute pictures of them, but didn't really capture how much fun they really had!

After exploring energy for a bit longer, we decided to continue to a new area and ended up at the large kaleidoscope and exploration area. The girls loved the kaleidoscope and exploring all that the area offered. It included a large plate with a pendulum that released sand as it swung. The girls loved clearing off the plate and then trying for different patterns with the pendulum. It was really cool and sort of memorizing at the same time. Near the pendulum was an area that included huge foam shapes that could be arranged to build different things. Of course, there were several of the Academy kids playing around with them! It was really creative and cool. The area also included an enclosed cylinder of water that could be spun to create a kind of air tornado. There was a long line of Glenhope kids waiting for a turn to pull the crank and create their very own tornado. They loved it!

They still had a little time before lunch, so we headed to the maze, which I knew the girls would love. As we walked to the maze, the girls loved finding snails and Georgia found the smallest snail ever and made it her pet. I took a picture of the girls (and tiny snail) at the entrance to the maze before we started to explore. Of course, I lost all three girls after about 3 minutes in the maze, so I headed back to the entrance since I knew they would end up there sooner or later. Sure enough, they had a great time exploring the maze and Sofia ended up asking me to go with her into the maze to take a picture with a really cool dragon.

After the maze, we met the rest of Sofia's classmates and fellow 5th graders at the picnic area. The kids' lunches were in ice chests so they found their respective lunches and found a place to enjoy their food. They were all eager to eat since field trips and all the running around makes the kids super hungry. I had my sandwich and enjoyed sitting down for a few minutes.

After lunch, Ms. Hayes and her kids (and all of us chaperones) went to the Life Cycles Center for the kid's science class portion of their visit. A young woman taught the class and it was really interesting! She explained that there is a lot of life, even though we don't necessarily see it with our naked eye. So, she explained the wetlands and how important are and how the wetlands life cycle works. It was so impressive to see how engaged and interested all the kid's were and how eager they all were to answer the instructor's questions. One of the best parts of Sofia joining the Aspire Academy is how engaged her classmates are in learning! The instructor separated the kids into groups of four and gave each of the groups a large bowl of water. They had to test the ambient air temperate, water temperature and then find three of the various little creatures that live in the water. The kids were all over it!

Once they were done exploring their water samples, the kids finished up and we all headed back to the entrance of the Children's Garden, where we met up with the rest of the Glenhope 5th graders. The kids sat on a series of stairs for a class picture and then we said our goodbyes and the kids headed back to their buses. It was such a fun field trip and I always love joining Sofia on such events so I can have a little better understanding of her classmates and class dynamic. I gave Sofia a big hug and then headed to my car and home in time to pick Olivia up from school.

Three very sweet girls!