On researching Field Trips I learned that many local parks and historical sites offer programs to complete badges. There are a ton of options for older girls, but we were able to find two that we liked to complete our last two petals. This one wasn't my favorite, but at $5 a girl it was an affordable and interesting way to earn their Using Resources Wisely Patch. The grounds were beautiful and it was definately different from anything else we had done before.
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| Handout we sent home with girls two weeks before the Field trip |
Goal and Badges:
We did everything we needed to do to earn the Green "Using Resources Wisely" badge, though we did a few small things in the next two meetings to finish up the lesson. We also wanted to get fun patches from Sully Historical Site, but they were $5. Ugh. Way to rich for even our indulgent blood.
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Sully Field Trip Itinerary
9:15. Meet and my house and make Garbies
9:30 Begin Traveling
10:00 Arrive at Site and read Daisy Handbook Story
10:30 Tour/Using Resources Wisely Activity
11:30 Picnic Lunch
12:00 Travel back
12:15 Pick-Up
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Gathering Activity
I was searching the Internet for songs that would go along with the "Using Resources Wisely" Petal and I found this one:
He's My Garby
(To the tune of "It's My Party")
He's my Garby,
I'll reduce ‘cause I want to,
Reuse ‘cause I want to,
Recycle, I want to,
Please do it too,
He'll be proud of you.
I thought it was super cute, but I couldn't figure out who Garbie was, so I decided we were going to make him. All the girls were asked to bring an old, used sock (preferably Dad's so it was a good size) and while the girls arrived they made their own "Garby" puppets. We thought them the song later in the day and they preformed it with their puppets at the finial celebration.
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| Our Garbies |
Arrival:
Sully Historical Site is a 19th century well-to-do farm house, out-buildings and grounds. When we got there we had to walk across the grounds (it was a beautiful day). We lined up the girls and taught them Garby, singing it was we walked across the property.
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| Sully Farm House |
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We had all the girls bring a packed lunch made from left-overs (using resources wisely, get it?) for after the tour and I bought a bag of apples for before the tour. Our little group stopped under a tree in front of the farm house, we handed out the apples and allowed the girls to drink from their water bottles while we read the girls the "Using Resources Wisely" booklet.
After, we talked about the story a little (bribing them with coins to pay attention) and about how they, personally, could use resources wisely. Luckily, this lined up perfectly with Earth Day and the girls had talked a lot about recycling and such in school and were eager to share.
Then I had the girls search for clover in the field and see if they could find clover flowers. They enjoyed this quite a bit.
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| The tree we ate under |
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| Searching for Clover |
Tour:
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| Tapestry on the wall of the meeting room |
The tour began in the beautiful front room. Our tour guide was dressed authentically as the lady of the house. She began by showing the girls the candles they used in the early 19th century as the only way to light the house at night. She emphasized how precious the beeswax was and how careful they had to be to use as little as possible.
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The house tour was given with a emphasis on how they had to Use Resources Wisely to survive in the 19th century. Things like keeping the doors closed to keep the heat in rooms and sharing beds to share heat. They did all their sewing in the rooms that had good natural light so no candles had to be used. The tour guide showed the girls shoes that could be used on the right or left foot so that they could use them longer, since the shoes wore differently on each foot. They were shown lady's and little girl's under things and dresses. We were told that even this relatively wealthy family only had about 3 dresses each and showed how rows were added to the end of the girls dresses so that they could be worn for many years as they grew. They even had a set of marbles the children made from the virginia clay soil we have so much of.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how well my 6 and 7 year olds paid attention. Most of their questions were stories from their own life, which seemed to frustrate the tour guide after a while, but if you deal with this age a lot you probably know it's pretty on par for their age.
Lunch:
The girls all packed their own lunch (it was supposed to be from left-overs) and after the tour we walked further into the grounds where they had some picnic tables. They ate and ran around. Since it was a beautiful day, we just let them have fun until it was time to pack up and go home.
Homework/Handouts:
This was our main day for the Green Petal, so we handed out the Using Resources Wisely handout as homework.
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