Manitoba Museum

Today I got to spend the day with Owen and his grade 3 classmates at the Manitoba Museum.  Firstly I have to say what a great bunch of kids they are.  Sure there is the odd kid that gets out of hand, or shows their true colours...but overall they were so polite, well-behaved and FUN!  We started the morning with the bus ride...who doesn't like a good old fashioned school bus ride...it's been a while since I've been on a school bus.  Then we spent some time at the Lapidary (OK - I had NO clue what that meant, but all those grade 3 kiddos did).  A Lapidary is (the word means "concerned with stones") is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials (amber, shell, jet, pearl, copal, coral, horn and bone, glass and other synthetics) into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs - thank you Wikipedia!  So, to put it simply, we learned about soapstone carving - the history, how and why it was done in years past and still today.  Then, we all got to try our hands at carving a small piece of soapstone.  The kids were SO excited to try this and there were some pretty creative results, I must say.  It was lots of fun.  Then we ate lunch and spent a short time in the museum.  As always , the Nonsuch ship was the big hit.  Then we had a very interactive and entertaining presentation on forces (attraction, repelling, gravity, electricity etc).  Very well done and the kids were mesmerized with it.  And for the final hour, we played in the Science  Gallery.  I'd never been there before and it was truly delightful to see the wonder on the children's faces at many of the different stations - like the pully chair lifts, talking and listening to a friend across the gallery, making arches and the "Matrix".  What a fun day.  We completed the day with a bunch of tired children for the bus ride back to school.

Thanks grade 3's for a wonderful day!