Field Trip Day

This past week, I tagged along with the first graders to visit the Pilson neighborhood of Chicago to learn a little more about Día de Muertos. This is a field trip the Spanish immersion classes all do every year. They tour the art museum, stop at a panaderia, have lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and visit an exhibit at the local library.

This is a fun field trip, one I think that I'll try to go on whenever I can. I was interested to see what was different since I got to go last year.  So, I dropped the little guy with a friend and drove into the city to meet the class. We started at the art museum. There were really cool exhibits. Many different depictions of  ofrendas and traditions of different areas who celebrate the day of the dead. 

Some of my favorites were these:

Along with the tradition-inspired artwork, there were many exhibits that were more contemporary; inspired by current events. There were many that were about protests about the treatment of people at our boarders and helping refugees. 

It was seriously cold the day we went so, instead of everyone walking to each of the stops, the bus took the kids and the parents walked. In part, having the kids contained on the bus made walking lots easier. This neighborhood also has lots of murals, and I passed several on the walk between our stops. However, it being super cold didn't inspire much photography. 

The library had a cool exhibit that was built by a big family in the neighborhood.

Then of course, we got some treats to take home to share.

It was a fun day, I just hope that next year the weather is a little kinder.