One of my favorite summertime activities is field trips. While we may take some during the year and we are hardly ever home so almost every day is filled with exploration and adventure, the summer field trip takes on a less formal feel. I love to just explore and not feel like it is part of a lesson plan (most homeschoolers live by lesson plans). This year, we took a trip, one stop included an aquarium. My 7 and 3 year old girls were so happy to visit an aquarium. Neither one had ever been to one before so this would certainly be an adventure. My 7 year old loves learning about the ocean and my three year old loves anything my seven year old loves.
The aquarium was filled with fun sites from sting rays to seahorses. The aquarium we visited had a touching pool so the kids could touch starfish, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, and sting rays. They loved being able to interact with sea animals. As the woman working in the touching pool told us all about the animals even my three year old was absorbed. The worker point out the mouth of the horseshoe crab was on the underside of the body. Later that day when my children were playing in the sand and my little had a crab toy she pointed out where the mouth was based on what she learned earlier. I just loved that.
Overall the experience was wonderful. They asked a lot of questions and learned a lot. Each of them grabbed a map of the aquarium that was colorful and easy to follow so they navigated the way. Learning to follow a map is not what I expected to for them to learn but they did! They also loved seeing the sharks. Each was a bit taken back when they saw a replica of a shark mouth. How interesting it is to see things in real life as opposed to on TV. Nothing beats a real world experience.