Dear Reader,
Okay, so I had a negative post on why I don’t like children’s and science museums (this does not apply to other museums like art museums btw).So I thought I would do a positive one on a field trip I did think was enjoyable.
This week we went to Oliver Mills Park in Middleboro, MA. This is a park park, not a playground. There is a river that runs through it as well as the remains of an old mill. There are picnic tables and ducks and pretty la
ndscaping.
And this time of year there are herring trying to swim upstream to go lay their eggs, which is why we went.
So we saw the herring, not our usual sort of wildlife. We had our picnic lunch. My older daughter painted a picture.
My son found a stick that looks like a mace and throws well.
My younger daughter made a dandelion chain necklace.
The park was fairly busy though not crowded. That is also how I would describe the Children’s Museum we went to last week–busy but nowhere near capacity. But this time there were all sorts of different people there. A few elderly or disabled men stopped and talked to us.
Now if you ask
my kids, they would probably say the museum was better. (Except for my older daughter; she could paint forever and said she would have liked to be able to stay longer at the park.) They had to try harder at the park to entertain themselves. But they did entertain themselves. The experiences were not provided for them; they had to make them. And to me that (not to mention the quieter atmosphere) made for a better field trip.
Nebby
