Charleston Tea Plantation - Field Trip

Did you know there is only one tea plantation in North America?  It is located on Wadmalaw Island, SC.  It actually originated in Summerville, and was later moved there.  The Bigelow Family actually owns the plantation.  The rest of the tea plantations in the world are located in South America, Asia, and Africa.  Tea bushes need lots of humidity and warm temps to grow, making the Lowcountry of South Carolina perfect!

When we first get there, we always get a free cup of tea from inside the gift shop.  Then we head through the free factory tour.  While we have been there numerous times, the tour is always extremely informational.  We also enjoy watching the machinery at work!!!  The tea is sifted, removing various particles, as well as crushing the leaves and then drying them (it is so more complicated then that!!!)  The drying time is what creates your different teas, as far as green, oolong, and black.  Green tea is not oxidized very long, if at all, before it is dried.  Oolong is a little longer for oxidation than green tea, and black tea for the longest.

After the factory tour, we headed outside to wait for the trolley tour.  We always enjoy walking around the property, and then on the trolley tour, seeing the tea bushes and greenhouse up close! 

In order to harvest the tea, the "big green machine" was invented.  It cuts the tops off, with the wheels on either side of the bushes.   Only the tops of the tea bushes are used for tea, as the rest of them are too woody!  The tea that is cut off is then put into truck beds, which are then driven to the factories.

In the greenhouse, the new tea plants are propagated.  Once large enough, they are planted in their own field.

Our family will miss going to the Charleston Tea Plantation each year!  I guess I will be ordering my tea offline from their website!!!

FIAR - Very Last First Time

Very Last First Time, by Jan Andrews is about an Inuit girl that goes under the frozen ocean when the tide goes out, to collect mussels, for the first time by herself.  There are parts of this story that frightened my children, but for the Inuit people who collect mussels to survive, it is very realistic of what they face!

Youtube has some videos of what it is really like to go under the seabed, and the dangers the Inuit people face in order to feed their families. We also watched some one making an igloo. Some of the videos we watched included:

• Race Against the Tide
• Video of the Inuit People
• Ducks Diving for Mussels
• Throat Singing "Dog and Wolf"
• Sesame Street - Ookyook Song

For activities, we

• Made a paper mache igloo
• Completed a polar bear painting
• Played an Inuksuk file folder game
  
•  Made our own Inuksuk
  
• Completed a Pointelle painting (painting with dots)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Made a Tidepool craft
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Completed a Tidepool Science Project
  
  

We studied:

• Inuits
• Throat Singing
• Igloos
• Polar bears
• Inuksuks
• Pointelle painting
• Tidepools

Extra books included:

• The Polar Bear Son - An Inuit Tale, by Lydia Dabcovich
• Polar Bears (National Geographic Kids)
• Snow Bear, by Jean Craighead George
• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, by Eric Carle
• I is for Inuksuk, by Mary Wallace
• The Seaside Switch, by Kathleen V Kudlinski
• In One Tidepool: Crabs, Snails, and Salty Tails, by Anthony D Fredericks

 For our dinner to go with our book, we ate some steamed shrimp, corn on the cob, and asparagus

BFIAR - The Snowy Day

As we continue through books centering around snow and cold, I decided to look at The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, with the children.  This is a lovely book about a little boy who enjoys a day of fun in the snow.  We tried to keep our activities for this book centered around snow, without the extra "rabbit trails."

Some of our activities included: (Sorry - I didn't do so well taking pictures this week!)

• Make a picture/chart of what to do on a snowy day

• Build a snowman with stuff around the house

• Make snow dough snowmen (2 containers of cornstarch mixed with one can of shaving cream)

• Used tongs to move "snowballs" (cottonballs)
• Melting ice experiment (Does ice melt faster on salt, on aluminum foil, on paper, or nothing?)
• Make snow covered trees (I drew an outline of a tree in pencil on blue construction paper. I then let the children pain it white, then sprinkle iridescent white glitter on top)
• Looked at winter storms
• Art with snow paint (equal amounts of glue and shaving cream)
• Created Cause and Effect Snowmen (My snowman melted because...)
• Use Q-tips dipped in white paint to make a snowman picture

Our extra books for the week included:

• Curious George - Snowy Day, by H.A. Rey
• Berenstain Bears' Winter Wonderland, by Jan and Mike Berenstain
• Oh Say Can You Say What the Weather is Today?, by Tish Rabe
• What Will the Weather Be?, by Linda DeWitt and Carolyn Croll
• Why Do Leaves Change Colors?, by Betsy Maestro
• Sunshine Makes the Seasons, by Franklyn M Branley
• Berenstain Bears' God Made the Seasons, Stan and Jan Berenstain, with Mike Berenstain

For our weekly themed meal, we ate a Mashed Potatoes Covered Meatloaf Snowman :)

Bee City - Field Trip

This post is overdo.... and written some time ago.  But I never posted it.  Obviously, from the wording, it was written prior to us moving.  However, I decided to post it and leave my wording and comments the same... So here it is - my post on our field trip to Bee City and review on it...

Our family tries to go on a field trip at least once a month.  With a move coming up quickly, we tried to get even more field trips into our schedule.  One place the children kept requesting was Bee City, located in Cottageville SC.  We had been there a number of times, and the kids really enjoy it.  Bee City has three main parts, including the HoneyBee Farm, the Petting Zoo, and the Nature Center.

The Honey Bee Farm is, I think, my favorite part of Bee City.  Here they give students a class on the benefits of bees via a video.  The children can see a live hive, as well as make beeswax melts into various shapes, pour honey into their own bear shaped container, and/or roll sheets of beeswax into two candles.  Their raw honey is yummy!!!  It is one of our favorite places to purchase honey, as well as wax for various crafts.

The second part of Bee City is the Petting Zoo.  Not all animals there can you pet, but many of them you can.  This area seemingly has grown over the years... with animals though, not space.  This is my least favorite part!!!  The animals just do not have enough room, and sadly it seems like it is more about making the "almighty dollar" opposed to educating about the animals, as most zoos are focused.  I was pretty disappointed with this area,  and had therefore considered not writing this post at all.  I finally decided that my blog is about real life... both good and bad...  Here are some pictures of the animals we saw there. (Picture Heavy!)

African Serval Cat

Cavy

The third part is the Nature Center.  My children LOVE this portion.  This time, there was a gentleman in there that spent quite a bit of time talking with the children about the specimen, as well as letting them hold a few.

So would I recommend Bee City?  I guess it depends on why you are going!  Are you going for the purpose of seeing various animals?  Then no, I wouldn't.  Instead I would recommend the Riverbank Zoo in Columbia.  However, if you are desiring to learn about bees, and have the children do hands-on activities centering around them, then yes, at this point in time, I would.  Will we be going back?  No.  I'll be searching for a beekeeper instead!