The American Revolution and Boston Field Trip

Hello Everyone,  We have been away on a very fun Field Trip to Boston and here are our pictures we took during the week.

We went to the Boston Public Garden the first day and we rode on the Swan Boats.  We saw ducklings with their parents and we think they were 

Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouak, Pack and Quack just like in the book we read, "Make Way For Ducklings".

Everything was blooming and it was so beautiful!  We saw Cherry trees and Tulips of every color.  People were everywhere enjoying the park.

On our 2nd day, we had our very first whale sighting on Stellwagen Bank  Our faces look pretty excited, don't they?  We saw Humpbacks and Sei whales all around us! Two Humpback whales breached together facing us just off the bow of the boat, giving us an incredible view of their huge pleated throats!   Our first Whale Watch was excellent!

 This picture shows a Humpback whale's tail which is called a fluke and the other picture shows its blowhole. 

Our next stop was the New England Aquarium.  Here's Gwen posing with her new friend, a Harbor seal.  We saw all kinds of unusual fish, giant Jellyfish and adorable tiny Little Blue penguins. 

After having some delicious Clam chowder at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, we met our tour guide Nikki, who took us all over the North End neighborhood and taught us about its history. 

We saw Paul Revere's house and the Old North church where the two lanterns were hung by the minister up in the steeple on April 18, 1775.  The two lanterns were a signal that the British were coming by sea and not by land.  We learned that Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott all helped deliver the message to the people along their way to Concord that night.   Paul Revere took the northern route and was captured by the British on the way and had to walk to Concord without his horse.  William Dawes took the southern route, and Samuel Prescott was the one who actually brought the message into Concord to reach John Hancock and Samuel Adams.  

 We ended our day eating giant "Hostess" chocolate cupcakes for dessert that were made by Modern Pastry. 

 We had to compare it to Mike's Pastry from our last visit!

 Gwen votes for Mike's Pastry as being better, and Carter's favorite is Modern Pastry.

Day 3 of our Field Trip started on 

a cloudy morning at the Boston Tea Party Museum and ships.  The Boston Tea Party happened on December 16, 1773.   The Patriots were very angry about so many British taxes especially on their tea, so they had a meeting and decided to throw the tea into Boston Harbor.  They dressed like Native Americans because they didn't want to be recognized by the British and arrested.  Here we are throwing the tea overboard! 

It started to rain so we took cover in the Boston Children's Museum.  Here's Gwen climbing up to the ceiling of the museum in a giant structure.  Carter is somewhere near the top   Carter liked exploring the bubbles and made a giant bubble bigger than him!   Gwen liked arranging the Tangrams on the lighted board.

Then the sun came out and we walked on another part of the Freedom Trail on a guided tour with a National Park Ranger. Here is the 300 year old "Old State House" the site of the 1770 Boston Massacre It's one of the oldest buildings preserved from the original 13 colonies. The Declaration of Independence was read aloud here in July 1776. 

This picture is the "Old South Meeting House" where the town meeting was held the night before the Boston Tea Party.

 

The last day of our trip we went out to Lexington and Concord, MA.  The first picture is the Minuteman statue which is very close to the Old North Bridge.    The words on the statue below the man is the first stanza of the poem "The Concord Hymn" written by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  

 This is a replica of the Old North Bridge that goes over the Concord River in Concord, MA.  The British regulars tried to take it apart to keep the Patriots from crossing.   It's famous because that's where the Revolutionary War started on April 19, 1775 as the "shot heard 'round the world". 

We wrote a letter to "The Economist" magazine this week because they had made a mistake when they wrote in a book review that Emerson's "Concord Hymn" poem said that the "shot heard round the world" had happened in Lexington, MA  - but we knew that it really happened in Concord, MA.  Here is the letter we wrote with our friend Dr. Dimare and our teacher Ms. Dunn.  

May 15, 2013

Dear Editor of the Economist, 

In the Books and Arts section of your April 27th - May 3rd issue you reviewed the new book “Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution” by Nathaniel Philbrick.   In the review it stated, “On the way they exchanged fire with the Patriots at Lexington, an incident that is celebrated in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s most famous poem as “the shot heard ‘round the world”.   Emerson’s poem is correctly titled, the “Concord Hymn”, not “the shot heard ‘round the world”.   Your review also stated that the above battle at Lexington was the one celebrated in Emerson’s famous poem.   As the first stanza of the Concord Hymn reads, “By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard ‘round the world.”   There is no river in Lexington and there is no bridge in Lexington!  The poem is a memorial to the fight that took place at the Old North Bridge in the town of Concord, MA, and the poem is engraved at the base of the Minuteman monument right next to the bridge that spans the Concord River.   We just visited here on our recent class field trip while studying about the American Revolution, and we have attached two photographs showing the North Bridge at Concord, MA and the Minuteman monument with Emerson’s engraved poem.  We learned from our teacher, Ms. Dunn, to always tell the truth because as your famous English poet Keats said, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”.  

We believe the author, Mr. Philbrick, once visited our island of Cuttyhunk , MA while researching another one of his books on the sinking of the ship the Essex, which leads to the novel “Moby Dick”.   Cuttyhunk Island is part of the Elizabeth Islands chain and part of the town of Gosnold, MA.  Our town was named after Bartholomew Gosnold an English entrepreneur who journeyed here in 1602 on the ship Concord to find the Sassafras plant and bring it back to England to cure a disease that many people had, and also to make money.  Gosnold’s voyage of peace and commerce to Cuttyhunk Island introduced English culture, law, and fair trade to America.   He later captained the ship Godspeed and helped establish the first piece of the British Empire in Jamestown, VA.  We are very proud of our heritage here on Cuttyhunk Island, proud to be a free people, independent-thinking students, and to be a part of that entrepreneurial spirit introduced to us in 1602 and still present today.

Sincerely,

Carter 

Gwen 

Cuttyhunk Elementary School

Cuttyhunk, MA

United States of America

Until next time,

The Cuttyhunk Kids

Whales, Stingrays and Sharks....Oh My!

We promised to tell you more about our awesome Field Trips so as we get ready to go on our very last Field Trip of the year where we will get to go to Boston and on a cool Whale Watch out to Stellwagen Bank, we remember our very first Field Trip back in October when we went to New Bedford.

Just like all of our off-island trips, our voyage begins on a boat, this time it was John Paul's Seahorse Water Taxi and a pretty rough trip because of the big waves.  We were all feeling kind of seasick but we made it.   John Paul is a great boat Captain, he went to school a long time ago at our schoolhouse when he was the only student there.  

He had a dog at school with him too! 

Our first stop was the Buzzards Bay Coalition Learning Center.  In this picture we are learning how to prevent oil spills. We used different materials like dish soap and sponges to try and clean up an oil spill. There was a giant 3D map in the middle of the center and it showed the whole map of Buzzards Bay and it was pretty cool!  When you pressed a button it would show all of these lights which were buoys and lighthouses in the Bay.    The last thing we did was use a computer to find live ships traveling through Buzzards Bay.  And when you clicked on a ship it would tell you lots of information like the size, country and destination. 

Next, we walked over to the New Bedford Whaling Museum and posed on a Sperm Whale.

We learned lots of cool facts like that whales had feet back in prehistoric times.  Below is a picture of us looking at a huge whale skeleton.    The Whaling Museum had lots of different whale skeletons to look at.

This is a whale skull that we found near the west end of Cuttyhunk.  We're not sure what kind of whale it is but it's pretty cool!  

Here's Gwen standing under a whale's jaw bone.

Here we are kneeling behind a replica of a whaling ship.

We were very surprised to find this famous painting of the west end of Cuttyhunk in the Whaling Museum.  

Then, we had a great lunch by the waterfront at Cobblestones with our Superintendent and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Latham, our Mom, and Ms. Dunn, before we walked over to the Ocean Explorium.    Here's Carter getting to feed the stingrays.

Here's Gwen getting to feed a Sand shark at the Explorium. 

This is one of the beautiful and huge aquariums at the Explorium.  Our favorite exhibit was an unusual white Octopus who was so intelligent he could take apart Legos to get the treat inside of them.  We saw a very large sphere with the world projected on it and it showed us how the Earth changed throughout time. 

Our last stop was to see a movie about how whaling was so important to New Bedford.
Like all good things, our first Field Trip had to come to an end.  Here's Gwen on the boat trip back to Cuttyhunk.   She was kind of tired from all of that learning in New Bedford!

Off to Boston to see the whales and learn about the American Revolution....

Until next time,

The Cuttyhunk Kids