Terra Cotta Warriors

The entire third grade at Hannah's school took a field trip today to The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana to see the current on tour exhibit, Terra Cotta Warriors. With five classes, it took two buses to hold all the kids. And there was enough room for the parents who wanted to go on the bus, rather than follow behind the buses. After securing our boxes of sack lunches and loading everyone on the bus, we were on our way shortly after 9:00.Our class was split in half between the two buses, so I had eight kids with me on our bus, and Mrs Tatman, our teacher, had the rest of the class on the other bus. We scored big time because our bus had air conditioning!!!! The other bus did not. Our bus must have been a pretty new one because not only did it have A/C, but it looked like there was a CD player in the radio unit and there were nice speakers throughout the bus. It wasn't used on this trip, as you can imagine the noise and commotion with 50 kids on the bus, and just the noise of the freeway and riding the bus.

The bus ride took about an hour, it was a long and bumpy ride. But it was fun sitting up high and looking out the windows. Hannah was excited to see some of the taller features of Disneyland from the freeway, and all the kids were excited as we drove past Anaheim Stadium.Once to our destination, classes regrouped and we entered the museum grounds. We had an 11:00 tour and had about half an hour to wait. Parents took groups of kids who brought money (or were lucky enough to have their parents with them) into the gift shop while we waited. Once inside the actual museum, there was no photography allowed, therefore I have no pictures of the Terra Cotta Warriors. The exhibit was a self guided audio tour, which was interesting to say the least. The classes stayed together and met up outside once done.After our time at the museum, the bus took us about a mile away to a nicely shaded park to eat our sack lunches. We had fifteen minutes before we needed to be back on the bus in hopes of making it home to the 2:15 school dismissal. But between bathroom trips and lingering eaters, we weren't on the road until 1:15!! And despite an accident on the freeway, we made it back to school five minutes after the bell rang! Hannah enjoyed the field trip and had fun. I'm not sure how much the kids learned with the audio tour, but observation of the artifacts was amazing nonetheless!