But then it rained.
Category: outing
-
Outdoor drama
Because I clearly don’t have enough to do, I’ve embarked on a small summer social studies curriculum in these parts.
For me, social studies was always a challenge.
There were all these dates that I could never remember. And all these white guys named John, Sam, or George. And then, for much of history, there were no photographs, which made it extra intangible.
Anyway, I thought this summer would be a good opportunity to do some hands-on learning about our world.
This week: Native Americans!
We read a whole slew of books, watched a few DVDs, and then, to cap off the week, I took Neko to see an outdoor drama about Tecumseh.
I made sure to get tickets to the backstage show, where they explained in detail about the guns that don’t shoot bullets, and how they pretend to fight and fall off cliffs. (Did you know most fake blood is made out of shampoo because it cleans easily out of clothing and hair? Fact of the day—check!)
I thought for sure that would take the edge off.
But I was wrong.
However, I did discover that no one really uses the “crying room” for evening performances. And it’s an excellent place to go to muffle the noises of gunshots and to discuss how the Settlers moving into Native American land is a lot like if some other family showed up at our door and told us they were now going to live in our house. So it wasn’t all bad.
Next week: Pioneers! (Where we’ll try not to hold a grudge, and just get excited about Laura Ingalls Wilder.)
-
Field Trip #2: Farm
I love this photo. Nothing says midwest like a goat dozing in the sun.
I realize I probably haven’t properly described the Field Trip concept in detail, so it’s probably just confusing to some.
We live in a college town, so when summer rolls around, things get very quiet. Many folks head off to beach houses for months at a time or teach summer sessions overseas, families in tow.
However, our company runs year-round, which means we spend all but one week of summer in town. We hope to change that up some day, and spend weeks on end on summer adventures with our kids. But for now, we spend the summer as homebodies.
That first summer I got a bit bored in our quiet town, so I started planning field trips for myself. Once a week we would get out of dodge and go somewhere. Somewhere different and outside our normal routine, just to shake things up a bit. I begged people to go with me. Every now and then someone would come along.
Fast forward five years, and I’m releasing the list of field trips a month in advance, and all the slots for our nine field trips filled up within two hours.
Wow.
We love these weekly outings, and love even more that so many people join us.
I’d encourage anyone to take on summer field tripping. Even just one or two each summer. Round up some friends, because there are many things available to groups that aren’t available to individuals.
In a future post I’ll detail all the places we’ve been in the last five years. But in the meantime, I will pass along this one nugget—the one thing I’ve learned in all those years is how often, if you just ask nicely, people usually say, yes, they would love to have you come visit. And because we asked, good golly, have we had some rich experiences.
-
Field Trip: Camping
Always a fantastic way to kick off the field trip season. Thanks to all who swam, cooked, laughed, bar tended, and kid wrangled. Supa fun.
(Also, happy birthday to my amazing father. Love you!)
-
Make a teacher do
During the running program at school, students got rewarded at 20 miles by making teachers do something. David insisted on a game of hockey with Heidi.
Love those teachers!
-
Happy birthday Kelley and Kim
The cake and cupcakes were nothing short of brilliant. The game and the enormous baseball equipment were an added bonus.
-
Hike
Our school has a fitness program each spring, encouraging students to run and walk as much as they can in three weeks. They find sponsors, and each mile raises money for the local food pantry.
I’m always amazed how enthusiastic the kids get, taking every opportunity to clock in a few more miles, like this school-led three mile nature hike. They muscled through, despite the huge amount of rain we’ve had.
All that mud? Nothing an hour splashing in the creek can’t fix.
