Field Trips!

 November 21, 2013

Every time the boys bring home permission slips for their field trips, they say, "Mom can you go too?"  Usually the timing doesn't work out, but this time I was able to make arrangements and go on both Kaden and Versii's field trips.

Kaden's class went up to Portland's Japanese Gardens on Thursday.  His class went last year too.  Last year they each wrote Haiku's, although Kaden couldn't remember which one was his.

 Kaden's class

 The Garden's are beautiful, but it was a really cold morning.  I think Kaden wished he would have brought his hat and gloves that he chose to leave behind at school.  I kept offering my gloves to him, but he said, "No, I can't take your gloves from you Mom."

 Kaden's teacher, Mr. Marsh broke the class up into 3 groups.  Here I am with my group.

 Versii's class went to the Oregon Ballet Theatre on Friday.  They had been learning dance from an OBT Instructor in their class for the last 6 weeks.  So they were invited to tour backstage.  We got to examine the ballet slippers, see where the costumes are made and stored and watch the dancers rehearsing in dance class.  Versii had fun in dance class at school, but found the field trip to be a little less exciting.  I thought it was interesting.  I found out the tutu's cost upwards of $2,000 and the ballet slippers are all handmade from London and cost about $150 for a pair and generally last only 2 weeks.  A principal dancer in a ballet will wear out the slippers in only one performance. And by the time an audience sees the start of a ballet, the dancers have already been dancing for at least 4 hours prior to the performance.  We were told the dancers are required to go to dance class for 2 hours in the morning, then depending on their part, they will go directly to performance practice for 2-4 hours and then go to the theatre to perform.  That just seems physically exhausting to me.