Today was a day of firsts for so many of us! We started our day at the Embassy of Switzerland. While traffic was not in our favor this morning, the embassy was so kind to us and shared with us information about their country in a shorter amount of time. We learned that LogiTech was a Swiss startup company and that Switzerland eats more chocolate per capita than any other country in the world. I could live there for the chocolate! Then we traveled a few blocks to the National Cathedral. While this is officially an Episcopalian cathedral, it serves as the church for the entire country. Famous people who have spoken in the cathedral include the Dali Llama and Martin Luther King Jr gave his final sermon there. Most presidential funerals are held here, and moments of national healing, such as the 9/11 memorial service also were held here. The stained glass windows in the cathedral are breathtaking. While the upper tiers of windows tell Christian religious stories, it is the bottom tier of windows that surprise visitors the most. They tell the history of the US, including windows for Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Lewis and Clark, and the War Chapel tells the stories of key military events in American history. After the tour students changed from their professional clothes and into casual clothes for the Smithsonians and the drive home tonight. We did some quick shopping at one of the tourist stores and then it was on to the Smithsonians. Students were able to visit two museums of their own choice in groups with chaperones today. The first two groups toured the Air and Space Museum and the American History Museum. They saw so many famous artifacts that they learned about in all of the classes in their middle school careers, so I hope that they enjoyed those museums. Then it was a quick switch and off in smaller groups with chaperones to visit a second museum. Groups headed to the Air and Space Museum and American History Museum again, as well as the National Gallery of Art, the Natural History Museum, the American Indian Museum and the US Botanic Gardens. Then it was one of those life learning moments - we took the metro subway from downtown to dinner at the Pentagon City mall. The metro proved to be an interesting experience since it was during the main push for commuters to get home. The students were troopers and everyone made it to the correct station and to the restaurant. The students were grouped into their small 4-5 person groups with their chaperones to make sure that we all got there. We had dinner at Chevy's Mexican restaurant. We had one student that had a birthday today so they celebrated at the restaurant tonight and we sang Happy Birthday at breakfast as well. We had one final stop at the US Marine Corps Memorial - Iwo Jima Memorial - to lay some carnations. Ms. Nelson's father was a Marine. We had 11 students and Ms. Nelson lay the carnations at the base of the memorial, took some final group photos and then the students left for home. They will be stopping for a rest area and short break in about 2 hours. It has been one of my greatest pleasures as an educator to have taught this class for the two years. They are all very special to me. To all of the parents - thank you for the opportunity to get to know your children - I know they will have bright futures if the questions and enthusiasm they showed on this trip is any indicator. Thank you! If you have pictures to share once everyone is home, just email them to me and I'll get more posted!
Step count update - 14, 086 steps = 6.25 miles Total steps this trip = 102,617 steps Total miles walked this trip =
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6/14/2014 0 Comments HIlls and Somber MomentsFirst off, I hope that all of the students and chaperones' fathers had a wonderful Father's Day! Today was such a somber day compared to our more fun and entertaining day yesterday. This was our marathon walking day. We started our day at Mt. Vernon. We walked down and paid our respect at President and Mrs. Washington's tomb, then walked up to the mansion and looked through the slave quarters and other outer buildings. We toured the mansion at 10:15 and got to see George Washington's presidential chair, the key to the Bastille in Paris that was given to him by the Marquis de Lafayette, and the bed that Washington died in. In the museum students found Washington's dentures, which always make people cringe thinking about how painful they must have been to have in your mouth. We had a quick lunch at the Pentagon City Mall and then headed to the Holocaust Museum. Our group toured the permanent exhibit and experienced a very emotional hour. They was a pile of shoes from victims at Auschwitz, one of the cattle cars used to transport victims to the camps, items destroyed in Kristallnatcht, and bunks from Auschwitz. They also saw the US Holocaust Memorial and the eternal flame in the Memorial Hall. After studying the Holocaust a couple of different times during their years in middle school students always look forward to the museum, but nothing prepares one for the emotional toll this museum can take on a person. It definately changes your perspective after a visit. From there we headed to Arlington Cemetery to pay our respects to the men and women who have serviced our country in the military. This is another sobering moment for our students. Seeing the long rows, row after row of headstones gets overwhelming at times. Then when we start talking about the life stories of many of the individuals buried at the cemetery and you start getting the person point of view it becomes more than just the headstones and names. We decided to have students and chaperones select which group they wanted to tour with. We had one group that did a highlights of the cemetery tour - the Kennedy family gravesites (President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Edward Kennedy), the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Arlington House - which was owned by Robert E. Lee's wife, who happened to be the great granddaughter of President Washington. The other group was a tour of some of the more unique and less popular areas of the cemetery. I led this second group and the students and chaperones decided they wanted to see the graves of many of the astronauts buried in Arlington Cemetery, including Indiana's Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, who both died in the Apollo1 fire, and Stuart Roosa, Donn Eisele and Jim Irwin who were all Apollo astronauts. Most of these graves are in a far corner of the cemetery and are quite a long hilly climb to get to. Twenty students and 10 chaperones elected to take see these graves and we powerwalked our way across most of the cemetery. They were all troopers, kept up, and asked great questions as they saw something on a headstone or thought of a question about the military or protocols at the cemetery! Then we headed to the Tomb of the Unknowns to watch the Changing of the Guard. Our two groups both saw the same Changing of the Guard ceremony! Then my group headed to see the Kennedy gravesites as we headed back to the bus. This group saw some of older sections of the cemetery, including many of the Spanish-American War and World War I graves, the Fr. Myer chapel, the memorial sections of the cemetery where there are headstones for service members killed but no remains could be recovered. After two such emotional and intense places it was time for some Irish food at O'Connell's in old town Alexandria. Our final stops tonight were some of the monuments and memorials. We visited the World War II Memorial, the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. We enjoyed this night tour since the memorials look so different when they are all lit up at night, and it was late enough that we pretty much had the memorials to ourselves and we weren't fighting any crowds of tourists and school groups. Tomorrow is our final day of the trip. We start at the Embassy of Switzerland and we are all excited to say that we have been to the country of Switzerland following this visit. Once you step into an embassy you have technically traveled "to" that country. We will tour the National Cathedral, and then do some fast shopping at some of the cheaper souvenir shops in town. We will have a pizza lunch on the National Mall in front of the Smithsonian Castles and change into comfortable clothes. We will spend a few hours seeing the various Smithsonian museums and then take the Metro subway to dinner. After dinner there is one quick monument left to visit - the Iwo Jima statue, also known as the US Marine Corps Memorial and then it will be on the road and headed back to Indiana. I will spend many nights over the next week or two still posting photos, so as the students get home and have photos they would like to email me to share on the website, please encourage them to do so! Chaperones will be getting me most of their photos tomorrow and little by little I will continue to get them posted. If you have not seen a close up photo of your student yet I will try to make sure one gets posted sometime this week or next week. There have been a couple of students that have been avoiding the multiple cameras the adults are using at all costs this week! So, keep those photos coming in through the submission page on my website or just email them to me. Thanks for the lovely comments to my previous postings - it is nice to get some fee
Step count update: 20,146 steps = 8.99 miles The students told me many times today that this was an amazing and awesome day. It was Flag Day and I don't think we could have spent it in a more patriotic way today. We began our day with our White House tour. This was a personal highlight for me today and I want all of the parents to know how impressed I was with your children today. This class is very special to me since I have had the pleasure of teaching them twice. So for me to have the opportunity to go through the White House today with students who showed such enthusiasm and interest in getting everything they could out of their precious few moments in the home of our President really touched my heart today. I always worry that students will just rush through the house because it is a self-guided tour and not really spend any real time looking at the rooms, furniture, or the view out of the windows. This group of students went beyond my expectations. They went through the rooms asking questions of the secret service agents in the room to learn about individual items or stories from the rooms. They took their time and enjoyed this very special moment. I had a hard time telling them that we had to leave and go to Baltimore because so many of them were just trying to soak up every possible thing they could. We took many group photos that I will get posted as soon as I can on the driveway of the White House as we exited the front doors. Next it was on to Baltimore to visit Fort McHenry, the site of the creation of Francis Scott Key's poem, the Star-Spangled Banner. What a way to celebrate Flag Day by going to the start of it all!! We had discussed the bombing of Ft. McHenry and the Star-Spangled Banner's poem as well as the history of the flag in class this year. When we got to the fort the students were able to walk through some of the barracks there, see cannons, go into bomb shelters, and tunnels that connected areas of the fort together. We walked along the upper ramparts of the fort to see the Chesapeake Bay and could visualize the British ships shelling the fort from the water. So many students told me that they loved their visit to Ft. McHenry. Then it was on to Phillip's, a well-known Baltimore seafood restaurant. The BAE makes a donation to the trip each year and this year they wanted something to be done with the money for all students. Their money paid for the meal at Phillip's today, so a huge thank you goes out to BAE tonight! Students had the choice of a fried seafood trio, Baltimore crabcakes, grilled salmon or grilled chicken. They also had a huge slice of cheesecake for dessert! After a huge lunch we changed into casual clothes for the baseball game. We saw the Baltimore Orioles win against the Toronto Blue Jays! It was a great game - hot at the start in the sun, but we got to see a homerun that went right into the bullpen we were sitting next to! We also got the wave started and it went around the stadium at least 5 times! We came back to have pizza and a little down time before bed checks. Today's more fun day was a perfect change of pace between the serious days yesterday and tomorrow. I almost hate to post today's step count because all of the students and chaperones told me they enjoyed walking less today! We walked more today than any of the other days so far. Tomorrow will be a jam packed day full of hill walking! We begin our day at Mount Vernon and doing some walking in George's footsteps. We will tour the mansion and pay our respects at his grave. Then it will be on to a quick lunch in the food court at Pentagon City Mall, the only food court stop of the trip, and on to the Holocaust Museum. We will be touring the permanent exhibit - which is the main exhibit at 2 p.m. Then it will be on to Arlington Cemetery to see the Changing of the Guard, the Kennedy graves, and some other notable graves before we go to Alexandria for dinner at O'Connell's Irish Restaurant! After we get our bodies refueled it will be off to visit the rest of the monuments and memorials - the World War II, MLK, FDR and Jefferson memorials. We will be walking up and down hills most of the day so I hope that everyone is wearing their walking shoes tomorrow. There will be a rather somber tone to most of the activities tomorrow so that is another reason today's fun events were so important! Thanks for the comments that have been added to the blog! I appreciate reading them and getting your feedback and thoughts! We finally made it to the District of Columbia! After all of the months of planning, fundraising, and club meetings, we finally got here. It was a fast paced and busy introduction to our nation's capitol today. We started the day at the Newseum, a museum dedicated to journalism and reporters. Some of the highlights there include the communications tower found in the rubble at the World Trade Center, Pulitzer Prize winning photographs, a section of the Berlin Wall, and other items related to journalism and covering the news of the world. A couple of students told me afterwards that the 9/11 exhibit made a huge impact on them because it was the first time they had seen the video footage of the World Trade Center collapsing that horrible day. This should brought back memories for the adults and I hope the students learned a lot at the museum. We enjoyed a fabulous lunch in Chinatown at Ming's. Meals were family style with big platters of food that a table shared. They brought out a wide variety of Chinese dishes and we hope students tried something new today they had never eaten before. After lunch it was a trip to Ford's Theater to see where President Lincoln was assassinated. The students found the gun and the knife that Booth used that day in the museum - both items were ones we had talked about in class. Students found other items in the museum and came up to me to share facts or ask questions they had connected to conversations we had in class. This was a highlight of the day for me! We didn't have time to go to the Peterson House though. From there we headed to the Capitol for our tour arranged by Congressman Rokita's office. Since the Capitol dome renovations have begun we couldn't see the entire dome inside, but we could still see the painting at the top of the dome. We made a bonus trip into the Library of Congress so students could see the Main Reading Room made so famous in the National Treasure movie. Next it was off to touring some of the monuments - we started at the Korean War Memorial, then saw big Abe at the Lincoln Memorial, and had a somber moment at the Vietnam Memorial (The Wall). To end the memorials on a light-hearted moment we took some group photos at the Albert Einstein statue in front of the National Academy of Science. We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and ended the day touring the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon. After seeing the 9/11 exhibit at the Newseum in the morning and the conversations we had as we approached the memorial, the students were full of excellent questions and insight. For a final stop on a long day of walking and rain, the students really impressed me with their interest in where we were and what happened there. Tomorrow we start the day with a tour of the White House. I learned tonight that the White House tours are limited to 1000 people per day since they were resumed after the government budget shutdown. This makes us very happy that we got in. From there we will go to Baltimore to tour Fort McHenry. I'm personally excited about this since I have never had the chance to visit this location so important to the history of our country. The other reason I am excited about this is because tomorrow is Flag Day and I can't think of a more appropriate day to visit the site that made the Star-Spangled Banner our national symbol! After that we are headed to lunch at Phillips Seafood, a famous Baltimore restaurant and a quick visit to the Inner Harbor, and finally the Baltimore Orioles/ Toronto Blue Jays baseball game. It is an afternoon game so if it goes into extra innings we can stay until the end this year. Step count update - 15,360 steps = 6.85 miles 6/12/2014 0 Comments Meet and GreetToday we came fact to face with Colonial history! Williamsburg can be an overwhelming experience with all there is to see and do and I think the students did an amazing job trying to see everything they could today. We started the day with a three hour guided tour of key locations and sites. Most groups began at the Capitol where the Virginia House of Burgesses met. Members of the House that made an impact on our history include Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry and George Washington. Then groups went off in a variety of locations. Some of the places they visited include the public gaol (public jail), print shop, wigmaker, silversmith, book bindery, Courthhouse, ammunition magazine, Governor's Palace, Bruton Church and cemetery, stockades, Peyton Randolph House, and lots of other trade shops. At noon we all came back together, redivided into smaller groups, ate lunch and explored sites in the little groups. Students got the chance to see specific sites that interested them, met historic figures and colonial reenactors. We met British and American soldiers, slaves, and member of the different trade jobs. We learned that a wigmaker could create a cheap and simple wig in just 2 days, but a more complicated or expensive wig could be created in 2 weeks. When we asked if we could place an order he said he would be happy to we just needed to shave our heads and get a cap from the millinery for him to use to create the base to the wig! Most students say the highlight of the day though was meeting the colonial people. The students asked great questions and we so impressed that many of the reenactors would stay in "their" time period when they answered the questions. They met a reporter and a plantation owner that they all came back to us sharing stories and details of their lives in colonial America that they had learned! We had a great Italian meal at Sal's and are now currently on the road headed to DC! We had a great time today despite the rainy weather. It was hot and humid today and several times we had pretty large downpours. Those umbrellas and ponchos students packed are definitely getting used. Tomorrow's weather forecast is pretty similar, so guess we'll be seeing some monuments in the rain. We have a busy day tomorrow - Korea/Vietnam/Lincoln Memorials, the Newseum, Ford's Theater, lunch in Chinatown, US Capitol tour, time at the Air and Space and American History museums, dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and then visits to the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial and Iwo Jima!
Step Count update - 13,367 steps = 5.93 miles 6/11/2014 0 Comments Colonial Immersion!Colonial America began to feel real to us today! We started our day at Historic Jamestowne, the original site of the first permanent English settlement in North America. There are many active archeological digs currently going on at Jamestowne, and the students were excited to see artifacts as they were digging them out of the ground. We saw recovered pieces of pottery, animal bones, and other artifacts. The students asked great questions at Jamestowne. They told me it was a great place to visit and that they learned a lot. We received so many compliments from other groups, tourists, tour guides, and park employees about how well behaved and dressed our students were, and what good questions they were asking. This was a great way to start our day. We then visited the glassblowing exhibit and saw them making flycatchers. All of the students were overwhelmed by the heat from the furnace used to heat the glass and how quickly they had to mold the piece as the glass cooled. Then it was off to lunch at the College of William and Mary. This was the second college founded in the United States and the students got to experience what a student union dining hall is all about! After lunch we visited the Yorktown Victory Center. This is a newer facility with some hands on and reenactment displays from the final battle of the American Revolution. It is humbling to see the artifacts they have displayed from the battle that won America our independence from the British! Two of our students were put on the gun crew to fire a cannon, and then the reenactors actually fired a blank shot from the cannon. They all jumped at the loud blast from the cannon as it went off! Talk about history coming to life! One of the girls on the trip said she couldn't believe that they actually shot the cannon off. She didn't expect it. We wrapped up our evening with dinner at Christiana Campbell's Tavern, one of the colonial taverns in historic Williamsburg. We had a wonderful meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, steamed vegetables, homemade vanilla ice cream, and their signature sweet potato muffins! We were entertained by a fiddler who played colonial tunes and then headed out for the ghost tour. This was a rain-shortened version tonight, but many of the groups said that they heard some fun ghostly stories. Mainly though they got a chance to walk through the main street of historic Williamsburg tonight and figure out what locations they want to see tomorrow when we spend the day exploring there. We have the entire day at Williamsburg tomorrow. We start with a guided tour in the morning to orient everyone to the key sites, and then we will break into our groups and spend the afternoon exploring locations each group wants to see. We will all meet up twice in the afternoon for special events, a reading of the Declaration of Independence and a military unit led by Benedict Arnold entering the Revolutionary City. We will have an Italian meal and then drive to DC! With the rain shortened ghost tour students had some downtime tonight at the hotel to relax and then get a full night's sleep tonight. It was a hot day on short sleep from last night - we finally got to the hotel at about 1:30 a.m., so we are very happy to have a short night and we are looking forward to a good night's sleep. Despite the short night last night and the heat today, the students did a great job and we all hope that they learned a lot today. We stopped several times to take large group photos and we have started the process of getting close up pictures of students at sites as well. I will try to get a couple of photos posted each night at least, but will continue adding photos to the page even after the trip is over, so share any photos you have even after we get back! One of our young ladies was absolutely thrilled today when the archeologists allowed her to step into their work site to get a picture with the Pocahontas statue! Looking forward to more great experiences and discoveries tomorrow!
Step Count = Tuesday 5, 961 steps = 2.65 miles walked Wednesday 16, 315 steps = 7.27 miles walked 6/10/2014 3 Comments tires and tired studentsWe are on the road. It has been a long day of traveling so far. We left Rensselaer about 7 a.m and switched drivers in Chillicothe,OH. Our drivers are Bob and Deb, who were our drivers last year as well, and we are very happy that are with us again this year. We ate lunch in Chillicothe at the Golden Corral when we switched drivers, and came out to find a tire on the girls' bus was off the rim. A tire repair truck was there to fix it, but it took longer than we thought. We had hoped the seal had just broke, but it ended up being a hole that needed to be plugged. After a delay we finally got back on the road. We are nearing Lexington, VA, and should get to Williamsburg about 1 a.m. The hotel knows about our delay and will be ready for us when we get there. It will be a short night since we have breakfast at 7:30 tomorrow morning. We are looking forward to the first tour day of the trip. We will be visiting Historic Jamestowne where the first permanent English settlement was and where Pocahontas lived. Then we will be off to the Yorktown Battlefield to see where the American Revolution ended and we won our independence! We will be having lunch on the campus of the College of William and Mary and dinner at Christiana Campbell's, a colonial tavern in historic downtown Williamsburg. We will wrap up tomorrow with a ghost tour in Williamsburg. It will be an early night tomorrow, which we will all appreciate after today's long travel day!
6/7/2014 0 Comments Our trip is almost here!After a very busy school year, full of club meetings, fundraising, and keeping grades up in all 8th grade classes, it is almost time for us to head to Washington DC for the 2014 trip. We have added some new sites to this year's trip that we are really looking forward to! Our first stop will be Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg. We will be spending two days there before we head to Washington DC. We will spend three full days in DC and one day in Baltimore. This is the 200th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner this August, so we will be visiting Ft. McHenry to commemorate this important event in American history. We leave on Tuesday morning at 6:00 a.m! Good luck packing this weekend and we'll see everyone bright and early on Tuesday!
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