Spent yesterday at the Minnesota State Fair. What a great place for education!
As Sophia and Olivia are getting older, I'm thinking that we may spend more than one day at the fair next year so we can spend more time learning about things that we normally don't have an opportunity to see during the year.
Some things we saw:
- a bee being born. (Actually it isn't the birth but the eclosion of the adult. The baby is born when the tiny larva or grub comes out of the egg, then it does nothing but stay in its cell eating and growing, then it takes a rest and finally it becomes an adult and breaks free from the cell. A dramatic event, nonetheless!)
- four cows being milked. (One cow had mastitis so the milk was pink.)
- miniature displays from The Secret Garden (a book we read earlier this year). The Midwest Miniature Guild had some really beautiful displays. Very creative.
- a Gypsy Vanner horse. Absolutely beautiful. Its tail goes all the way to the ground and the mane is at least 3 feet long. The hooves are huge - like draft horses, but they are really gentle. They call them golden retrievers with hooves. They use to pull gypsy wagons.
- other breeds of horses including the pinto (much smaller than I though) and miniature horses (the girls liked the miniature ones a lot).
- butter carving. Both Olivia and Sophia were fascinated.
- dioramas, a mosaic bench, and an educational display about Abraham Lincoln in the Education building. Sophia was interested in all of these.
Some things we did:
- pet calves as well as older cows.
- pet a donkey, sheep, and horse.
- played with wool that was just shorn from a sheep. Olivia liked feeling how warm the wool was (she buried her little fingers in the wool of a sheep who was sleeping).
- touched a pig (plus learn about how aggressive pigs can be when placed with other pigs they don't know). Olivia loves pigs so this was fun for her. We all enjoyed watching the runaway pigs.
- looked at a variety of bonsai (two of the bonsai were 58 years old!) including one that looked like a forest.
- learned about Harriet Bishop, St. Paul's first school teacher. There was a costumed interpreter outside a renovated historic home on the State Fairgrounds. Sophia had lots of good questions and was particularly interested in the hoop skirt. (She had seen one at the Folsom House in Taylors Falls when she went to Pioneer School in July.) See more information about Harriet Bishop below.
- tasted fresh apple cider.
- went on the giant slide and a ride that spins around fast. (I'm happy we ate much earlier in the day.)
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This is from the Minnesota History Center's website:
Harriet Bishop (1817-1883)
When you meet Harriet Bishop, you will hear stories of her early teaching days in St. Paul. So look for Harriet in her 1840s dress and be sure to ask her about the "extra students" she sometimes had in her classroom!
Harriet Bishop, St. Paul's first public school teacher, was born in Vermont in 1817 and arrived in St. Paul in 1847, two years before Minnesota became a territory. She was a graduate of Catherine Beecher's teacher training course for women in New York and responded to a call for a teacher from Minnesota missionary Thomas Williamson. Bishop soon learned that life in her new home could be both dangerous and delightful.
Her first schoolhouse was a former blacksmith's shop that frequently housed more rats, snakes and stray chickens than students. She grew to love her adopted state, however, and wrote about its many wonders in several books, including Floral Home.
A devout Baptist committed to moral reform, she opened a "Female Seminary" in 1850 and helped establish many charitable societies in St. Paul. She promoted temperance and woman suffrage throughout her life. She was married in 1858 to John McConkey, from whom she was later divorced. Harriet Bishop died in St. Paul in 1883. | 