ROM Romp

On Friday we ventured out for our first ever field trip. We loaded our small group of children into cars with as many adults as children joining the trip. Our destination was driven by the interests of the children in the class:
Our oldest two have been spending many hours conversing over dinosaurs and early mammals. The discussions ranged from their names to how they became extinct (generally pronounced by the 3 year old as ‘instinct’). Not a day went by that it wasn’t discussed and the topic eventually came to family trip one of the children made to the ROM to see the bones last spring. This fascinated even our youngest members of the class. “You can see the dinosaurs?” they all asked. Our 3 year old expert was happy to fill everyone in on the details. And thus an idea was born. Let’s take the children to the ROM to see the dinosaur bones. Plans were made, permission forms signed and car seats installed.

The drive there was relatively uneventful but it is interesting to listen to a couple of ‘almost’ three old discuss what they see out the window of the car. The giant inflatable gorilla, a school bus on the roof of a building; things you and I have seen a thousand times driving down the 401 yet to them they were new finds and something to share with their buddy.

Working with children for several years does not dull the amazement of seeing children experiencing and observing the world. As we approached the geometric architecture of the main entrance the 2 youngest were mystified. They kept pointing the different shaped windows and talked about the “unusualness” of the building: They aren’t even three and prompting they were admiring architecture! We gathered in the front entrance, arranged name tags and jokingly made sure that each child was responsible for an adult so that the adults didn’t wander off.

And with that we entered a different world.

Taking the stairs to the first exhibit we made sure that the children all entered the room as the same time. The moment they saw the size of the skeletons there was a spreading look of wonder that was something to behold. The two youngest were stunned into motionlessness staring at the Albertasaurus. And then it bubbled over. The sudden inability to make a coherent sentence and stay in one spot for longer than 2 seconds hit them. The children spontaneously explored the room looking at the different dinosaurs, the big the little and those in between. Interestingly, the children were drawn to the teeth: were they scary like the T-Rex or small like the brachiosaurus. Each child was able tell you if the dinosaur was an herbivore or carnivore by looking at their teeth and that became a bit of a game; although the omnivore really threw them for a loop.

When it was time to enter the second display (the one we knew housed the T- Rex) we again made sure we entered as a group; and again stunned silence. The size and ferocious pose overwhelming our little charges but moments later they all took turns being “fed” to the T-Rex for ( ‘epoch’ologically impossible) photographs. We spent a long time examining the beast and its body parts. The children had previously tried to make dino tracks in the snow and were studying the feet now so that they could be more realistic.

The dinosaur exhibit, while being the main draw, was not the only exhibit we visited. We enjoyed seeing all the fossils with the fossilized sea shells being another favourite. However, we also entered the forest of the biodiversity exhibit and looked for the hidden animals amongst the display. The children were able to name many of the species in the forest in both English and French. This area was a great ‘hands on’ area with puzzles, a fox den to crawl through and skulls you could actually touch. The excitement meant that this area was explored particularly haphazardly but our group was able to deal with this fun way of learning that was at the heart of the experience.

The grown-ups at this point realized that they were getting a little hungry and checking watches realized that we were a good 15 minutes past our usual lunch time. Not wanting a meltdown in the middle of the ROM we quickly moved on to the young children’s play area with an eye to getting to lunch.

And what a great time! There was sand with dinosaur bones to dig for and goggles and brushes to look like a real paleontologist. Again finding the T-Rex teeth was the highlight of the “dig”. Knowing we needed to quickly find the school lunch room area we went quickly through the rest of the play area with only a brief stop at the castle and dragon toys.

Sitting in a lunch room with our packed lunch we enjoyed listening to everyone tell their versions of the experience. Each had different things they liked and remembered.

At 1:30 we walked very tired children back to the cars, buckled them in and headed for school. It was only moments before all were sound asleep.

This trip was particularly successful even compared to other trips I have been on as a parent or teacher or organizer and in reflecting on it I think in part it is explained by the circumstances where we were able to follow the interest of the children both in the planning and in the logistics at the ROM. Definitely an approach we will be trying again.