Our First Informal Field Trip

Last Wednesday we met at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido Children's Museum in the afternoon. The kids enjoyed playing in the tree house, speaking to each other from a distance through the voice tube, trying out different instruments, comparing the weight of objects in a scale balance, and setting up camp in the play cabin.

The Escondido Children's Museum offers a group guided educational visit, which I'd like to do for a future field trip. You can visit their website to learn more. (http://www.escondidochildrensmuseum.org/)

We then headed over to the auditorium for the 4:00 "First Wednesdays," a free performance arts series. This month's program featured a troupe of young tap dancers -- "Tapsounds." Lydia especially enjoyed the dance with life-size bird puppets. I appreciated how the troupe presented tap as accessible to youth and maybe even hip--but Alden was not convinced of the hip factor. At this point he thinks the only hip dance is hip hop.

We plan to go to each monthly "First Wednesday" program as an informal field trip with Creative Learning Circle. I will announce each program and invite the other parents to join us there. Perhaps a few times during the year we can go early to include a visit to the children's museum. To see the schedule of "First Wednesday" events, go to the Arts Center website (http://www.artcenter.org/firstwed.htm).