C. R. Smith Aviation Museum

Recently, my kids and I went on a homeschool field trip to an aviation museum in Arlington, TX.  This was the first museum we’ve visited since we arrived here in TX last summer, so it was a treat to get out and see something new.  It was kind of unique, because it was attached to the American Airlines training facility.  It had lots of neat displays of things unique to that airline, like seats from their planes and uniforms of flight crew as they changed across the different decades.

The kids got to participate in separate educational programs based on their grade levels to focus on a particular topic.  I sat in Holden’s class with him, and we got to use some everyday household materials like foam bowls, paper cups, coffee filters, and masking tape to try to design something that would get sucked up into a wind tunnel with the goal being that it was float in the air without sinking or rising up out of the top of the wind tunnel.  We had fun attempting a couple of different designs.  We did pretty well at getting them to rise, but they kept rising slowly and always exited the top, so we needed something to weight them down.  Only one child was successful at getting theirs to float, but all of the kids had a great time trying.

We also had free time to explore the museum.  Haylee did a scavenger hunt with her group that allowed her to visit every exhibit and learn something from it.  Holden and I just browsed around, did some crayon rubbings of different types of planes, and went inside a passenger plane.  At the end, Holden went into the Big Blue Blocks exhibit with a bunch of little boys and had a blast jumping around and building things in there.  I got to meet some nice ladies there.
When we left, the kids and I sat in the van and ate our packed lunches, and then we shopped at a couple of places nearby.  When we got close to home, we stopped at the Sonic where Hayden works and got some slushies to end the day.
It was nice to get out with the local homeschool group again.  I’m looking forward to seeing what other events they offer this year.  One good thing about moving to a new state is that there are always lots of new things to see and do!