We were in Santa Barbara a few days ago. We didn’t get to mission but were told the chalk drawings will be visible form myu
I was at the Santa Barbara Mission on Sunday afternoon and the chalk drawings were still visible. It is an amazing festival held every Memorial Day weekend. The nice thing about visiting after the festival is you get to see all the beautiful artwork without the crowds.
I am the only one in my family who hasn’t visited La Purisima in Lompoc. I think it has a lot to see and do since it is a Ca state park.
I am reminded once again on CC about the dreaded California Mission report that it seems every Ca public school student does.
Lol @mom60! I went to public school in Los Angeles way back in the 70’s. Writing the Mission report was certainly dreaded, but everyone loved the field trip! Do the kids today still get to visit a Mission?
When my D’s were in 4th grade the Mission trip for their school was a train ride from Solana Beach to San Juan Capistrano since you can walk to the Mission from the train station. It was a really fun field trip and I chaperoned for both my D’s classes.
Yes, visiting a mission and writing a mission report and building a model of your chosen mission is still very much a rite of passage for every 4th-grader in the California public schools. Craft stores do a booming business in selling mission model kits, saving kids and their parents the stress of figuring out how to build a model of a specific California mission from scratch.
My kids all visited La Purisima on a field trip. Probably the one field trip I didn’t drive on. I was so happy when 4th grade rolled around for kid 2 and 3 that they no longer had to make the model. They had groups and made a model of their mission in the sand at the beach.
There is also Olivias Adobe in Ventura that could be combined with a trip to Santa Barbara.
Yes, 4th grade still focuses on the history of California and there is always much ado about missions. The year culminated with a day trip to Sacramento, the state capitol, where – among other things – they visit the Capitol Building, visit Sutter’s Fort and go panning for gold also the Sacramento River.
The study of Missions constitutes a large part of the curriculum. As a class, they visited a couple of local missions, and over winter break, my husband and I took our D and a friend on our “Mission Mission” to visit a whole slew of missions between San Diego and San Francisco, including the one in Carmel that was the subject of D’s 4th grade research project, for which I believe the arts-and-crafts portion of the unit was a group – not an individual – project.