Friday's Travelor

We had an outstanding day yesterday. It was one of our best ever field trips and it us usually our least. For some reason, going to New Harmony is often just too hot, too much walking, and the kids don't get it.
We choose New Harmony as a field trip site because of the time it takes to get there. We need to see how the children are behaving close to home before we take them as far away as Louisville.







Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that our field trip faculty is outstanding. The old standbys, Judy, Edith and Amy work very well together.

And this year, our young gals, Elise and Leigh are doing field trips too.







The project for faculty is to make every trip as memorable as possible for every single child or what's the point?









Yesterday, that happened. What a joy.

We had a really nice breakfast together of whole grain orange pancakes and vanilla syrup, juice and milk and headed off on the bus. The children were actually very well behaved on the bus, and all the teachers were delighted. We had one child on the bus who did not go to the bathroom before he left school, and he learned a really good lesson!




We arrived at the Athaneum and used the facility and then took off to the demonstrations at the log houses. We learned about candle making, cooking and housekeeping in a 200 year old house, and then we went to a Harmonist house and learned about how they lived. We saw herbs, tasted homemade bread and ate home churned butter. Some of the kids liked it and some did not. Some of the older girls decided that we need a butter churn so they could make our daily supply of butter. It was easy to see how the chores went between sitting, standing and bending. Truly a balanced day.

We learned about lufa squash, and actually got some seeds to plant. Can't wait to do this today!

USI was excavating some old crockery at a site where the original Harmonist pottery barn was once located, and we got to look into the "dig." The kids really enjoyed this.

Then we looked at the roofless church, and the dark garden.







Lunch was eaten in a huge park in New Harmony. It was a beautiful day and the children enjoyed playing on the wonderful playground.

Then it was off to the maze. The kids loved running through this delightful series of paths and plants.

On our trip home, there were 20 children asleep. We came home to chocolate chip cookies and milk and then played outdoors.

It was a splendid day.