OUR FIELD TRIP TO THE NATIONAL MALL

November 12, 2007 by Nicole
Filed under: Around DC, dc metro moms

This Blog article can also be read on DC Metro Moms. I’m a contributor… Great Site!

In keeping with suggestions from online parenting guides, and PBS, and articles in the weekend paper, and even blurbs on the sides of cereal boxes, I decided to do something fun and educational with my 3-year-old son. We take ‘field trips’ together. During the long days of August when NOTHING was going on in this town, we tried to do a field trip once a week… now it’s once a month.

We got in the car and went down to the Mall. My son loves cars… and trucks… and planes… and rockets, really any mode of transportation. So I’m thinking, ‘What could be better than The Air and Space Museum ?’ Nothing… or so I thought.

I don’t know when you last parked down at the Mall, but parking is surprisingly easy. They added parking all along the service road that borders the Mall, the entire length of it. And if you want to take Metro- you’ve got the stop right there.

I pulled into a space only about a block away from The Air and Space Museum. No meters and ‘rock star parking’…cool! We walked across the little service road to the sidewalk and immediately saw a beautiful fountain in front of the National Museum of the American Indian. It had many levels and an edge big enough for a 3-year-old to walk along. He loved it (at this point I knew, maybe he’s not going to be as excited as I thought to see Wilbur and Orville Wright’s plane).

I finally coaxed him away from the super cool climbing fountain and we went into the Air and Space museum. As you all know – it is gigantic. It’s cool for adults and maybe 6–year-olds, but my son couldn’t really grasp that the huge cylinder which must have looked like a cylindrical building to him, was part of a rocket. He did however, like the models of rockets that were smaller.

We walked around a little more. I think we stayed a little over an hour and that included a trip to the Air and Space museum McDonald’s. The happy meal toy was a NASA rocket – nice touch McDonald’s and NASA.

We then started to leave; he told me he was ready to go. But wait, he was so impressed with the purse/bag x-ray machine that the guards showed him how it worked.

We made another stop at the fountain, crossed the street and my son yelled, “Mommy, look!” It was literally a bus and truck put together, I’m sure to haul artifacts around the Smithsonian. I believe it was a government vehicle.

“It’s a… BusTruck! I’ve never seen one of those before!” And he just stared.

When my husband got home from work and asked what we had seen and learned on our ‘field trip’ my son immediately started in with a description of the ‘BusTruck’… no planes, no rockets… the BusTruck.

So once again, I tried to give my son an educational experience, and he gave me the education.

But he’s a fun teacher!