"This is the best day of my life!!"

I heard that more than once last Thursday, somewhere between the super cool bus ride, finding real dinosaur fossils, and swimming with friends. Drumheller is not only an annual Grade 4 favourite, but a memory they will have their entire lives. Please check out the gallery for a full collection of photos!

We were absolutely spoiled with our coach bus this year. "It's like an airplane!" and "Do you think the Oilers ride on a bus like this?" were my personal favourite comments. Everyone had their own comfy seat and the space was huge! It made a pretty smooth trip to West Stettler park, our first pit stop. There's that big hill! Not too hot, not too cold today. Just enough time to stretch our legs and then it was back on the bus with an hour to go until drumheller. The lunches and snacks came out as the anticipation grew. What seemed like all of a sudden, we were descending the valley. "Look!" was all I heard on the bus as we drove through curving canyons. Now we're in the badlands!

We were greeted at the museum by Catheryn, who would be our Edu-Tour guide for the two day trip. We were thrilled to learn we had the sleepover space all to ourselves even though we counted as only one class! Bonus!

The first program was a hike through the badlands. "If it feels like sand....it's sandstone." Students explored a very cool landscape that looks like nowhere in St. Albert. We strolled through this alien environment learning about how the different rocks were formed. The highlight was searching for fossils. Catheryn was an expert! Kids would walk up to her with what looked (to my untrained eyes) like any old rock. "Sandstone. Sandstone. Sandstone. That's a fossil!" I have so many pictures of proud archaeologists! We did have to leave the fossils behind - protected Provincial Park and all - but it got us excited to make our casts later that evening.

After a quick snack we went into one of their classroom spaces. Students learned that the first archeologists took photos and dug up some cool stuff...without labelling any of it. Using old and modern photos, we compared locations to find a match. Then students were able to classify rocks, fossils, and identify human clues like newspaper scraps to give context on the dates these places were explored. It was an excellent hour of investigation!

They were chomping at the bit to get into the museum after that. I got my steps in making lap after lap to take as many pictures as possible. We also started scoping out prime sleeping spots for later. Tyrell is a huge museum, with so many things to explore!

Dinner was delicious! Everyone was happily served tasty food to refuel on our adventure. "When is swimming?" Oh boy would we hear this a lot...

We got to dig with real archaeologist tools next, uncovering fossils just like the pros. They don't extract the fossils, they uncover the dirt around them! Using toothbrushes, paintbrushes, and what looked like dental tools. It was important to record where on a grid the fossils were found for future scientists. But when was swimming again?

My favourite program they saved for last - making the plaster fossil casts. It was a bit of a surprise which cast you would get but no one was disappointed. They followed the complex instructions to a T and came home with pristine copies of real fossils! Was it time for swimming yet? No! Catheryn asked everyone what their favorite dinosaur was and seemed to have a real, actual fossil for them to touch for each and every one. That was very exciting, and apparently we were her favorite group for having such an interesting variety of requests!

But when was swimming??

At last! 8:30pm rolled around and we headed off to the pool. Such a cool experience to have a pool to ourselves as 1.5 classes. Some kiddos had never been swimming with friends before. There were foamy canoes, basketball, and a diving board. Even if the water slide wasn't working, no one noticed - too much fun to be had! This really caps of the day as one of the best school trips of all time.

Thankfully, they were tired after that. We had a midnight-ish snack and then started setting up for bed. Make sure you sleep near a herbivore, just in case! Everyone found their own little corner to set up and get snug as a bug. Lights out at 11, finally!

7:00 am came so soon! But there were no complaints as we packed up and mozied over to breakfast. My favourite sleepy humans were still all smiles throughout breakfast and our final presentation. We identified a timeline of creatures from the dawn of time to now, and none of them were dinosaurs! There were so many things to learn on this trip. 

The gift shop was the perfect finale, bringing home souvenirs to remember this amazing trip by. We stopped once more at the park for a pizza lunch on a beautiful sunny day before boarding the bus one last time. Many naps were had, by kids and adults, on our final leg of the journey. Thank you to everyone who was able to come early to pick up your sleepy little archeologists! Thank goodness it was Friday. 

We are so grateful to all of our parent volunteers who came with us and everyone at home who encouraged their children to come, helped them pack, and promised they would have an amazing time. Thank you for your incredible support for this fantastic experience. Go check out that gallery and enjoy the pictures!