For this trip, Jack joined Ms. Lutfy's tightly-run ship of a class (partly because he preferred Aidan's trip to the mineral museum to his own class trip to a local zoo...but mostly so that Mama did not have to miss two days of work going on two separate field trips). This trip coincided with a unit on geology and formation of the earth through volcanic activity, so the whole class was excited about the topic...the tour guide said she could not remember ever hosting such a well-behaved and interested kindergarten group, and I believe it -- Ms. Lutfy is seriously engaged in teaching the subject and she is also serious about high expectations of proper behavior. Ms. Lutfy does not mess around. 
It's on the the site of a defunct zinc mine, and is chock full of so many more beautiful rocks and crystals than we even knew existed. After touring the various exhibit rooms in the museum itself (and pointing out a few of our favorite specimens),
Then the class had a picnic lunch, and the children were sent off to work the quarry! 
The "mine dump" is where they previously dumped out all the collected rocks that wouldn't contain zinc. These were formerly thousands of feet below ground, but now people are free to come chip away at them and collect samples -- this was the highlight of the trip! All the kids brought their goggles, hammers and chisels and all had a tremendous time collecting samples (despite the unseasonable heat). 
After they had filled their sample bags, we all trudged back up the steep sandy path to the black light stations, where the kids could check to see how many of their rocks had fluorescent or phosphorescent properties -- and almost all of them did! Such pretty colors for all their hard work. It was a great class trip and it concluded with ice cream (which is how every trip should end, really).
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