the field museum

The Field Museum offers free admission for the entire month of February so today we decided to take advantage of this.

I only had one section that we *had* to cover today, that was the "Arctic People" section to go along with our study of the Iditarod. Regardless of how I prepped them, the kids were expecting to see exhibits on the dogs, sleds and the race itself.... not a great big exhibit about the native people of that region. We did learn more about the people and the conditions in which they lived and saw the reasons why traveling by sled dog would be a good mode of transportation.

Here the kids are reading about the sleds....
... we learned that the basket sled came to be used only after Europeans came into that area.

An Eskimo dog...
An Eskimo dog on top of a traditional house of that region...
Some clothing....

Photos were tough... it was a very dimly lit room and the lights in the display cases were on motion sensors. So, if I took too long fiddling with settings, the lights shut off and I would have to wave my arms around to re-light the lights and then start all over again.

In addition to the Arctic People section, we also covered most of Africa, the What is an Animal section and, of course, Egypt (a definite favorite with Alex and Clara). We had a really nice time, but we were all tired. So, we didn't end up staying all that long... maybe 3 and a half hours or so. That's the beauty of living in the city and the fact that admission is free right now. We could go home, guilt-free, knowing that we could go back again without any trouble.