Our Classroom Today--October 5

Idyllic, no?

We stumbled upon what might be the greatest outdoor space for us yet. One of our Tuesday group members had a desire to camp, but, well, it just hasn't worked out for her this year. So she wanted to go to a campsite for the day. She did the research, found one reasonably close (it is SUPER close for me, so I love it all the more!), and made the plans. We didn't know what was there. We were pleasantly surprised. The campground is only 5 sites, and we had the whole place to ourselves. There is a central fire pit, along with pits for each site. We used the central fire pit. We had a fire, which the adults sat around while the kids ran and played in the woods surrounding us. They also found the creek pictured above. C had also put together notebooks for the kids, so they could draw things they had seen out in the woods.

It was a very peaceful day. The kids ran. The kids played. The kids drew. We hiked. The adults sat and chatted. And we all tried some new fire roasted foods! We made bannock, something I have wanted to try for a while but never got the ingredients together for! I didn't use the recipe from that site, however, because it was a bit vague for me. Mine was similar, but I can't find the link to it right now, sadly. I'll post it when I do find it! We roasted apples--the easy way, on a stick like a marshmallow. The peel will char, and you can peel it right off and eat the apple. We roasted one whole in foil, too, but I am not sure how that one came out, I didn't try it. We of course had s'mores. And we made banana boats. We didn't use that recipe, though it is similar. T brought bananas, and I rattled off how we had roasted them when I was younger, too. So she tried it...but we only had regular size marshmallows, and we used pieces of Hershey bar. Still, really good. I don't think 5 minutes would have been enough, however. They are better, in my opinion, when the banana is fully mooshy. The first one wasn't quite soft enough, and it was on the fire for more than 5 minutes. Still, quite good, just not as squishy.

The weather was perfect. The leaves are falling from the trees and made a nice crunch beneath our feet. It was such a great day, that we are hoping to do it again next week, weather permitting!

Outdoor Hour, Challenge #1

I have long intended to start the Outdoor Hour Challenge series based on the Handbook of Nature Study. We just never seemed to get to them. Winter is not exactly the time I wanted to start something like this. While we could do it during the winter, it would have been much less rewarding than now. If we get into a good habit, then we might continue through the winter. We'll see.

The first challenge was fairly simple: spend time out side, talk about what you saw, investigate further.

We spent our time in the back yard. The kids brought all sorts of things in with them: tree leaves and seeds, flowers, pine cones, grass, a little of everything. Then we sat down at the table and looked over what they found. There were some new things to identify, and some things we already knew. Kiddo wanted to put his things on sheets of paper so he could write down what they were. What a great idea! Kutey followed suit, but she was less interested in the writing part. The tape was the fun for her! She moved on to coloring once everything was taped. Once Kiddo had everything taped down, we started learning more about many of the items on the pages. We identified the maple trees in our yard as silver maples based on their leaf shape and seed shape. We learned more about dandelions. We learned that the small purple flowers that have been growing everywhere in our yard are common blue violets. We learned that our evergreens are some sort of spruce tree, though we are still uncertain as to which kind.

The most interesting thing we learned is that we have lots of wild edibles in our backyard: Dandelions can be eaten, the maple tree can be tapped for syrup and sugar, the common blue violet leaves and flowers can be eaten, and the creeping charlie is used in various edible forms, such as tea. We're planning a feast from the wilds of our backyard! It makes me even happier that we have not sprayed our yard in 9 years. We can consume these items with out worry, as long as we pick from our yard!

So, what wild edibles do you have in your yard?

Planting time

We started planting our gardens today. It is still early to plant around here, but we have had some unusually warm weather, which has us all itching to get the gardens planted.

We only planted a few seeds, and most of those had to be started indoors anyway. We planted a variety of bell peppers. One seed packet is a mixture of 5 colors of pepper. I am way too excited about them. I would love to see purple peppers in my garden. Given that Kutey can eat half a bell pepper in a sitting, having them growing in our garden would be a treat. The other packet was a green/red bell pepper. If they all grow and produce, we should have plenty to freeze for the winter!

We also planted some morning glories and violas. Kutey picked them out when I was looking at the vegetables with Kiddo and Hubby. She really likes her flowers. Both are seeds, but they seemed to be hardier seeds, from what I read on the back of the packet. Let's hope they survive!

Kiddo and Kutey wanted to help with everything. They weeded, dug, raked, planted, watered, and generally got in there and got dirty. I can't wait to get the rest of the garden going, too! We have carrots (three colors!), zucchini, and summer squash to plant, and I'll get some tomato plants from the nursery (I don't do those from seed...I don't know why.)

Our Classroom Today--March 23

It was a unique Tuesday today. There are four families in our group. One couldn't make it. I got a message from another as I drove into the nature center that they wouldn't make it. I hadn't heard from the third, didn't have her phone number (which has since been remedied), and she didn't have mine. But the weather was GORGEOUS! And we were already at the nature center, so why not enjoy it!

Enjoy it we did. We started by a pond, poking at the thin sheets of ice still floating on top, fishing out snail shells, observing the leaves and bugs and things caught in the ice. Fantastic fun.

As we headed in from the pond, we heard some rustling in the leaves to the side, so we sat down as still and quiet as we could to try to see what it was. We caught just a glimpse of a very small mouse/vole/shrew as it scurried under the leaves. Quite a treat.

Then we went on a little walk. We observed all sorts of animal signs--tracks, scat, broken twigs, and that little burr in the middle of the path. That led to a great discussion about what it was and why it would have tiny hooks. So cool.

As we came back around toward the building, we spotted our friends. YAY! So the kids got to hang out with J, while I talked to his mom O. They had a great time, we ate some lunch, and played some more in the wonderful, warm sun. Ahhh...

Our Classroom Today--November 17

In Minnesota, you have to enjoy the nice weather while it is here. We can be trapped inside for months with weather that is just too cold to do much outside. Especially for little ones. So we are extra appreciative of the beautiful November we have been having. And of the fact that our Tuesday group has been able to enjoy the great outdoors for a little bit longer than we anticipated! We returned to a nature center we have previously enjoyed this week, and enjoyed it immensely again.

Today we walked all the way around the lake. There are several places where the path is a boardwalk which gets you right into the middle of the cattails. Because of this, the cattails were within reach (especially with the assistance of the hook stick Kiddo found). I guess I have never really explored cattails. I love to photograph them. But I guess I never actually touched them before. They bloom in your hand. The seeds literally puff off as you touch them, and it keeps going and going. There are thousands of seeds packed on there. A little tip, though. When you are holding a cattail for a child to touch, make sure you are up wind. Though being covered in cattail seeds does lend itself to a lesson in seed distribution.

Our Classroom Today--November 3

Ah, Tuesday. I love Tuesdays. And as Kutey has been battling crud for a couple of weeks off and on, making our Tuesday outing even more important. We had to miss a few other outings we had planned last week and at least one was canceled due to the rain. We were ready to get out. We were ready to play. And it was a great day!

We hit yet another nature center in our area. We are lucky to have so many about. Again, I had never been to this particular one, and it is great. We started at the large playground, where the kids had a blast. Then we pulled out the jump ropes! New for my kids, Kiddo picked it up quickly, Kutey needs to practice just jumping in general, but she'll get there. Our friends O and M picked it up quickly and were quite good! Then it was time for lunch and a walk in the woods. The walk was short, as we found holes in trees that were perfect for making fairy houses. I need to find a small chair to carry with me, cause I could have sat down for the amount of time the kids spent building these fairy houses. They had fun, and worked together, though, so I can't complain!

We also saw: 6 or so wild turkeys (more than once, and rather close--so close, in fact, that I had to remind the kids that they were wild and that if they felt threatened they would come at them), a huge hawk that flew low over the jump roping, a squirrel (Kiddo's sighting, and he loved that it was camouflaged with the log it was sitting on), a couple of woodpeckers (Kutey and I saw them when we went to wash her hands after an unfortunate tumble on the playground), and black-capped chickadees on the bird feeders outside the center. The turkeys were particularly fun to watch, since they didn't seem to care too much that we were there, and were in no hurry to walk away from us. It was also fun for Kiddo, Kutey and I to watch them literally walk down the path we were planning to take, all in a row. If you look carefully at the picture, you can just see them on the path.

Our Classroom Today

We have been loving our Tuesday group. The company is good, and the "classrooms" are magnificent! This one was a bit farther afield than we usually venture, but well worth the drive time. The nature center had great things for the kids to do and see. Lots of appropriate make believe toys, along with some nature piece exhibits such as furs and skeletons.

Once the kids started getting squirrely, we moved outside for lunch and a hike. It is getting cooler here, we have had snow, but that hasn't stopped us from venturing into the great outdoors, for which I am grateful. We walked along a path that then became a smaller path, that wound up being not a trail. We turned around went back to find the boardwalk. On the boardwalk we found these:



Everyone had to have a turn carrying them (poor things, just there minding their own business, then high up tin the air being bounced along). They were eventually returned to the boardwalk, in one piece, and hopefully none the worse for the trip.

Let's hope the good weather continues so we can hit a few more outside treks before the snow sticks!

Our Classroom Today--September 22

We hit this park again today:


Given that I was able to take pictures that have not a single child in them, you might not believe my previous statements about the crowds. Believe me, in the summer, it is awful. We had a bit of a scare when a couple of buses arrived, but they went deeper into the park for activities. I am not sure they ever got to play on the equipment--kind of a unique kind of torture, you can see it, but no, you can't play there!

We again visited the woods after lunch. The kids spent hours adding finishing touches to the wood hut they have helped to build. They hung bits of plastic they found in the woods, the found special brightly colored leaves and put them in cubbies in the house. They gathered firewood. They designated spaces for cupboards. And all of this they did by negotiating with one another. We never heard an argument. Well, we didn't hear an argument for a couple of hours. When they start getting tired, we can tell, but then we kinda know what is going on. They are having so much fun! And coming home completely exhausted.

Our classroom today...

was this:
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Well, this and two other ponds, the area surrounding them, etc.

I often get asked about how homeschooling works by parents who send their kids to public and private schools. They ask about my schedule. They ask how I get them to do their work. They ask if we are very definite about when we are in school. It becomes obvious that they can't imagine homeschooling because they are thinking of putting the classroom into the home. I know there are homeschoolers that work that way. But it is so far from what I do that I usually end up laughing.

Today is a perfect example. We spent 5 hours playing in the ponds at a nature center. They had a bucket that had nets, bowls, spoons, magnifying glasses, and a page of pictures and names of the things we might see. We saw snails and minnows and water boatmen, leeches and water mites and damselfly nymphs and side swimmers. We saw turtles and dragonflies and hawks. The kids were at their best. There were 6 kids, and none of them melted down, there were no fights, there was a great deal of teamwork, and it was one of the most delightful days! I attribute a great deal of that to them being in their element.

And that is what homeschool often looks like for us. Time spent immersing ourselves into the learning. Time spent with others who are doing the same thing. Time spent in a great big classroom without walls. There were no books, no computers. One double-sided piece of paper told us as much as we needed to know. The kids were not even aware they were learning. They didn't know "school" was happening. And that is when I know we are at our best. They will remember far more that they saw and learned today than they ever would if I tried to teach it to them sitting at the dining room table, which is where most people assume I homeschool. I should take a picture of the table for you. Then you could laugh, too, because there is very little chance we would be doing school among the piles there!

Our Classroom Today--September 8

Today is the day that MOST public schools in my area started. Last year at this time, I was worried about Kiddo missing out on all that first day of school electricity. This year, far less concern. We like our rhythm. We like our freedom. And we like being able to go to places like this:

when there are very few other kids around! Today, for "Not Back to School Day," we met friends here. We went once this summer, and all of our kids came out and said there were too many kids in the park to play. It was true, busloads of children had arrived, making it rather unpleasant. We couldn't blame them.
After playing on the equipment to their hearts content, we had some lunch. After lunch, the kids chose to play here:

instead of on the equipment. Really, they enjoy this as much or more than the equipment. They played here this summer, too, when the equipment was too crowded. I love that they love this just as much. I love to watch them play here. I love that we can spend the entire day here if that is what we want to do.

Water Table Weather

A few years ago, I splurged and bought a Sand and Water table. I rarely buy my kids things like this fresh from the store. I prefer to get them gently used, they are just too expensive otherwise. But I saw this table in an ad and I thought it would be perfect! And it was marked way down at a discount store.

Once we got it set up, we realized that if we put sand in it there would be no way to move it. In addition, if you put sand in one half and water in the other, well, really, you were just going to have wet sand. That was not terribly appealing to me. Besides, I managed to pick up a Little Tikes sandbox for $2 on a garage sale, so we already had the sand part taken care of. Thus we wound up with a water table. Fortunately for me, my children LOVE a good water activity, and a water table is absolutely perfect for them. I am not sure what they would do if there was sand in half of it, to be honest.

It winters in the shed. The kids have been antsy about their summer toys, particularly Kutey, who has asked incessantly since January if Daddy has put up her pool yet. It won't be warm enough for that for a bit yet, but the water table seems to have satisfied both of them for the time being. We got it out yesterday. I haven't seen much of them at all today as they have been happily playing outside in the warm, fresh air, spilling as much water as they like.

As you can see there are many, MANY toys in it. Some of them were intended for the sandbox, and got sidetracked to the water table. Some of them were repurposed for it. Their favorites are the small boats, the water wheels, and the plastic medicine droppers.