Kartchner Caverns and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Field Trip

3rd Grade took a field trip to Kartchner Caverns and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Half the students went to Kartchner in the morning while the other half went to the Desert Museum. In the afternoon, they swapped locations. We met at school at 6 am and returned around 7:30 pm.

Me was able to chaperone. Officially, she was a chaperone for Megan's class but because of numbers, her group went with Matthew's class which meant we didn't see Megan's class all day since we were at opposite locations. We had 2 boys from Matthew's class, 2 boys from Megan's class and 2 girls from Megan's class in our group. Everyone got along well. It was a long, wonderful day.

Ziv and Adam M.

Adam Z. and Matthew

Anshika and Megan

Melody, our guide and activities coordinator for the day

We drove through Saguaro National Park on our way to the Desert Museum.

Looking over their booklets at the Desert Museum. There were 15 different stamps of animal tracks that the kids could collect. We got 12 of the stamps plus an impression of the stingrays.

Our group heading into the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

A sampling of the gemstones displayed at the museum. There was an area outside where the kids could look for gems, which they really enjoyed, especially since they could keep any that fit in their pockets.

There was a really cool cave exhibit that the kids enjoyed exploring. It made us more excited to go to Kartchner Caverns in the afternoon.

The museum is actually more of a zoo. Here is a wolf we saw.

We enjoyed watching a raptor free flight show. The birds would fly right over our heads. Here, one of the handlers has a Chihuahuan raven.

Great horned owl

Caracara falcon

We enjoyed watching the otters. This one was very playful and swam right in front of the glass, even following the kids' hands at times.

Everyone enjoyed the stingray touch.

Tortoise Matthew

We then headed to Kartchner Caverns. The kids really enjoyed doing a nature scavenger hunt when we arrived.

Mrs. Pierzga and Me.
(Mrs. Pierzga was one of the chaperones and is also a 4th grade teacher at our school.)

The kids enjoyed playing in the visitors center before our cave tour. The cave tour itself was really cool but no pictures are allowed. My favorite question asked by one of the kids about the bat guano: Do you ever clean that up?

Matthew, Hailey, Elijah, Jake and Marjorie

Elijah, Matthew and Anshika

Afternoon group picture at Kartchner.

Our guide did a really good job having activities for the kids to do on the bus. On the way to the Desert Museum, they did activities about cactus including drawing saguaros. On the way to Kartchner Caverns, we learned about bats and tore bats out of construction paper. On the way home, we created a cave with balloons and pet a lizard. Yes, they brought a live lizard with us on the entire journey.

Our lizard

Megan and Anshika petting the lizard.

Matthew petting the lizard.

Our bus before its transformation into a cave. It kind of looks like a cave already. Megan is under her blue wrap, Matthew and Adam Z are under the orange blanket and Ziv and Adam M are under the black blanket.

See all those cave formations? The kids had a lot of fun with balloons, straws and tape.

Matthew enjoyed the bat activity; here are the ones he taped up to the window.