Carnegie Museum of Natural Science

Hello Everyone!

This past Friday the entire Kindergarten in our district had the opportunity to travel into the city and visit the Carnegie Museum of Natural Science. For those of you who are not from Pittsburgh, or have never had the pleasure of visiting this museum, it is filled with many exciting exhibits. Since the Kindergarten has been studying dinosaurs the past couple of weeks they were very excited to explore the many dinosaur areas. 

We started off the day at school by packing our lunches and meeting with our group leader. I was very lucky to have three wonderful chaperones (Thanks Miss D, Mrs. Medzger, and Mr. Gates!!!) and each one had only four students to explore with. 

Next, we headed off to the big city! Once we arrived at the museum we took a quick break for lunch and then we were off to explore wherever we desired.

Some groups chose to study the snake tanks.

 While other kiddos thought looking at the Scorpions and Crawfish were the way to go!

These two girls loved looking at how tall some animals are!

This group took a hands on approach acting out what dinosaur life was like.

My groups favorite part of the museum was the insects. They have an entire wall full of them and one little boy was even able to spot the Goliath Beetle that we had learned about a few weeks prior to our visit.

After the groups had some time to explore, we all met up to do a group tour. The museum offers a nice tour to take the students around and teach them more in depth about the different parts of the museum as well as some of the history behind the specific dinosaurs.

 First, they learned about the different types of plants that lived millions of years ago. 

 

Next, the students took a look at some fossils that resemble our alligators and crocodiles of today. After taking a look at their huge mouths the stidents were challenged to open their mouth just as wide. It gave everyone quite a laugh!

 

Our tour guide Sally taught the kiddos how dinosaur bones sink into the ground and the process of their recovery millions of years later by paleontologists.  She was very impressed when a few of the kiddos already knew the name for paleontologist. That made me one very proud teacher!

Next, we spent the most time in the dinosaur room. We were lucky enough to see many complete dinosaur skeletons. They have quite a few and they are very impressive to see the dinosaurs in their actual size. Although we have talked about the size in class, seeing them in real life really put their size in perspective.

Last, we took a look at the underwater room. Although it was not part of the dinosaur tour, our tour guide said it was her favorite. It was a very cool room with the blue lighting and skeleton hanging over head. This was one of the favorites of many of my students. 

Sadly, it was finally time to head home. Although most of them were not ready to leave they sure did seem tired on the way home!