Junior Rangers - Antietam Battlefield

We jumped at the opportunity to be introduced to the Junior Ranger program by our friend LaRee and her girls! They were going to be visiting from PA and going to Antietam Battlefield which is not far from us, so we met them there!

This program is a great opportunity for kids to learn hands-on all about the history that took place at a national park. When you get to the park you just pick up the booklet from the visitor's center - there are age-appropriate options, so all of the kids can participate! While visiting the park, we explore and find all the answers to the questions, or complete an activity/hike/hunt/etc. Here are my two big boys with their friends completing a section of their booklet.


Once you are done, you go back to the visitor's center and a Park Ranger awards the kids a Junior Ranger badge! It's a very cool program. E was very proud to earn her badge!


M took over the camera for a while during the visit - here's one of his shots. :)


We climbed up a tall tower on the battlefield - LaRee's dad was nice enough to carry Emma up! Here's a shot of all our kiddos at the top. :)


If you haven't checked out the Junior Ranger program before, give it a try! There's a list of all the parks that participate in that link. Great history lessons that STICK with kids - because they have fun learning it!

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D.C. field trip!

Since DH had a business meeting in DC and had a hotel for a couple of nights, we decided to take a field trip! We were able to pack in a bunch of sightseeing, all of which the boys chose.

Here they are at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I think they were pretty amazed to see all those names and realize the true cost of war.


The Lincoln Memorial was next as it is very close to the Vietnam one. They enjoyed running up the steps and seeing the huge statue of Lincoln inside.


The National Museum of the American Indian was at the top of the list for the kids. While there were some neat hands-on activities on one level, overall I was a little disappointed in how little detailed information there was for the various tribes. We were also not there for terribly long, so it may be that we missed some things.

            

We spent a little time hanging out around the water where we had some neat views of the Jefferson Memorial. The kids had a good time feeding the fish and the squirrels.


Arlington National Cemetery was a new experience for all of us - I had never been. What an amazing experience - even more awesome than seeing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There were tombstones just as far as you could see in every direction. We didn't have enough time to go see the changing of the guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We put that on our list of definite things to do in the future.

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