Rice Rock Museum

On Friday, we had our first field trip of the school year.  I love to get the kids out into our community.  It is great for them to see different parts of our city, and to see how the learning they do in class really does help people in the real world.

We are about half-way through our study of Rocks and Minerals.  We have focused mostly on the rock part.  We have learned about the properties of rocks, the different kinds of rocks and how they are formed.  The students have shown such interest and curiosity about everything.  It is wonderful to see.  This field trip happened at a great time during our unit of study, because they kids knew enough to see real life examples of some of the things we have been reading about.  But, there is still much to learn, so they were able to ask great questions of the rock experts!

One big deal of any field trip is, of course, the bus!!!  It was fun.  Our driver played music and the whole bus was clapping and singing along.

Once we got to the museum, we went into the Northwest Mineral Gallery.  It features rocks and minerals that come from Oregon, Washington and Idaho.  Below is the state rock, a thunder egg.

There was so much to look at.  The minerals were all colors, sizes and shapes.

I love these 2 best friends!  They stayed side by side the whole trip!

This is our guide.  She taught so many new things about rocks.

This is a HUGE thunder egg.  The center is filled with opal.

This is a rock from space.  They are SUPER HEAVY!!!  Can't you tell!

This was the rainbow gallery.  These rocks look normal.........but.......

Put them under a black light.....and oooo....ahhhh...awesome.....

Even our parent chaperones like what they saw!

The also have a large collection of petrified wood.  Here we are learning how that process happens.

The kids LOVED looking at their collection of gold.

and fool's gold....

This is the crown jewel of the Rice Rock collection.  This is the Alma Rose Rhodochrosite.  It is from Colorado, and is part of the largest find of this kind of mineral.  This piece is worth over 3 million dollars!

It was a lovely day, and we ate lunch outside on the beautiful grounds.

At the end, the kids got to visit the rock pile and choose a rock to take home.  We found some great ones!

It was a great field trip.  The kids did a great job and I can't wait for the next one!