Rafting on the Delaware

We took another camping trip over Memorial Day weekend.  This time we were right on the Delaware River and we decided to take the kids on a rafting trip down the river.  They don't recommend these trips for children under 5 but our kids have their own life jackets and are used to going out on the ocean in Daddy's boat, so we thought they would do fine.  We did take the shorter 4 mile trip which ended up taking us about 2 1/2 hours since we went nice and slow and stopped along the way.  This section of the Delaware is very slow and easy with no rapids and only a couple of faster moving areas.

Both kids liked paddling.  Vicki only lost her paddle twice.  Both times were on the down river side of the raft so the current brought it right back to us.

We stopped for a picnic of potato chips and pretzels (at 10:30 in the morning) at a little clearing.  Stepping out of the boat was very muddy and twice I almost lost one of my (fairly expensive) sandals. 

Vicki liked looking over the side of the boat for fish.  In a lot of places it was shallow enough to see moss growing on submerged rocks.  We also saw a couple of painted turtles, a hawk and a pretty little waterfall.

Despite our stop the kids couldn't make it back without another snack.  Vicki must be in the middle of a growth spurt.  In one afternoon, in the course of about 4 hours she ate:  a turkey cheddar brat, macaroni & cheese, spaghettios, 1/2 a nectarine, 1/2 an apple, a few handfuls of blueberries and a bowl of Fruit Loops. 

Both kids said they enjoyed the ride.  I don't think the longer (8 mile) trip would have worked out as well - 2 1/2 hours definitely seems to be their limit for sitting in a raft.   Being able to paddle, lean over and touch the water, jump up and down and see how much they could rock the raft all helped to make the trip interesting for them.  My kids are definitely not the "sit still and listen" type but it was still a very pleasant journey.

To see what others have been doing this week, visit Preschool Corner and 5K too at Homeschool Creations.

Wordless Wednesday

Camping/Nature Study

We took the kids on their first Tent Camping experience over the weekend.  And of course, our first night there we had severe thunderstorms with almost continuous lightning and rain that sounded as loud as a waterfall.  Luckily the rain didn't start until almost 9pm so we were able to get the campsite set-up, have dinner and were almost ready for bed when it started.  Unfortunately, the kids were definitely not going to go to sleep with the light and sound show going on.  At first, they said they were scared by the storm but they gradually settled down and ended up having a good time in the tent.   Each of the kids had their own flashlight, which was a good thing since someone (who me?) forgot the camping lantern.

First they played a game where they took turns dancing in the "spotlight" from one of the flashlights. 

I had brought glow sticks left over from Stephanie's 13th birthday party (yes, 3 years ago) and the kids played a game throwing them up in the air and diving after them on the sleeping bags.  Daddy had fun playing this game with them and of course jumping around like lunatics helped them settle down to go to sleep {insert eye roll here}.

After about an hour, the initial wave of rain started to slack off and the kids started to wear down.  Mom was the only one awake for the three subsequent waves of rain, thunder and lightning.  Not a great start to the weekend, especially not when Vicki woke up at 6:30 am.

The campground we stayed at was not far from where Daddy grew up in South Jersey.  Previously a quarry to excavate clay for a local brick company, there are 25 "lakes" that are actually excavations that filled in with water.   I would call them more swamps or ponds than lakes but there are many paths and hiking trails weaving in and out of the ponds with plenty of opportunities to see native wildlife and leading to great discussions on camouflage. 

If you look in the very center of the picture, you can see there is a butterfly with its wings folded up, allowing it to blend in with the tree bark.

This is what the same butterfly/moth looked like with its wings unfolded.  I've been trying to identify the species and it seems to be an Admiral butterfly.  There were a lot of these flying around and one actually landed on the front of my sweatshirt.

This is a Northern Water snake.  When we first came up to it, we startled it into the water.  It came out again immediately and when it stopped to hide in the brush it had a baby snake on its back.  Everything I've ever heard or read about snakes indicates they do not care for their young beyond a couple of weeks of birth but this one didn't seem that small compared to the adult.

Painted turtles, red-eared sliders and box turtles are all native to New Jersey.   We were pretty far away and it was hard to tell what he might be but Daddy thought he was a painted turtle.  If you look in the bottom left corner of the picture you will see the much larger turtle lying just under the water with his head sticking up between the lily pads.

Vicki checking out the swans, geese and ducks from one of the many bridges around the ponds.

The babies were adorable yellow puffs.  I'm pretty sure the white birds are Tundra swans but I've been unable to conclusively identify the gray and white birds.

One of the gray birds out of the water.  Anyone know what it is?

  In addition to the great hiking trails and abundant wildlife, the campground also had a great playground.  The kids loved climbing on the geodesic dome.  Georgie was actually pretty brave and climbed all the way to the top and dropped down through the middle.

There was a school bus-looking structure that had rotating letters that Georgie used to practice some of his spelling.  Since we haven't actually done any spelling and are still working on short a words in reading, I think I may need to step things up a bit to catch up to where he's actually at.

Making scary flashlight faces is a camping requirement.

Looking for tadpoles.  Cousin Zachary came to visit one day (after going out fishing with Daddy).

Despite the wet start the kids had a great time exploring the outdoors and enjoyed their first camping trip.


To see what others are doing check out Preschool Corner and 5K too and Homeschool Creations.

Field Trip to Crystal Caves

We took a field trip to Crystal Caves with our local homeschool group.  I made the mistake of telling the kids we would pack a picnic lunch to eat there.  Georgie decided he needed his backpack to carry his lunch like he used to when he went to school.  Not a problem, I actually even knew where his backpack was.  Vicki decided she needed her Dora backpack.   After searching the dress-up box (where most of the backpacks, purses, etc. wind up), the toy cabinets and the hooks where the rest of the tote bags are kept I suddenly realized.....Vicki doesn't have a Dora backpack.   I managed to convince her to use the backpack that came with one of her baby dolls instead, which of course meant a baby doll had to come along.

The picnic area was right next to a small stream and field of wildflowers.  Vicki had fun poking the water with a stick and eventually ended up wading right in, soaking her shoes and her jeans to the knees.  Another mom was nice enough to offer me a dry pair of pants but I told her we'd be fine.  I'm glad I didn't bother changing her since once we were in the caves Vicki proceeded to jump in every standing patch of water in there (and if you've ever been in caves, you know they are WET.)

Georgie accidentally got his shoes wet so sat down for a while blowing dandelions so his shoes could dry.  It was a pretty warm day outside but the caves are chilly.  Vicki didn't care that she was wet to the knees but Georgie hated that his shoes were a little damp.

Once we hiked up the path to the entrance to the caves (and mom recovered from her near-heart attack from carrying Vicki all the way up) we saw a brief presentation about the caves.  By this point, everyone in the place knew Georgie, both from him going around introducing himself and from me constantly calling "Get back here George", "Don't touch that George", "Sit down George" and just plain old "GEORGE!!"  It also helped me make a very important decision.  I was thinking about attempting to take the kids to see Toy Story 3 in theatres this Summer.  I don't think its going to work.  Georgie cannot sit still for more than 2 seconds at a time, while Vicki likes to provide commentary while she watches a movie.  "Look an arrow. It's pointing to the rocks", "Look a waterfall how pretty", "Oooo those rocks are Bea-U-ti-FUL".  The mom sitting next to me was laughing and observed how Vicki doesn't miss a thing while I just wanted to hide.

Once we were in the caves I tried to stay toward the back so the kids wouldn't be too disruptive of the guide speaking.  The kids had to be watched very closely since the floors were wet and slippery, there were a lot of steep, rough stairs and I didn't want them falling down a crevasse.  We made it through in one piece.  The kids both enjoyed looking at the different rock formations but Vicki had the most fun stomping in the various puddles and swinging from the walkway railings.

 

After our tour of the caves we did some panning for pretty rocks.  The gift shop provided bags of various stones (quartz, peridot, pyrite, citrine, amethyst) in a lot of sand.  The kids poured the bag into a screen and held it in running water to wash away the sand and reveal the stones.  This was a lot of fun and something I've been thinking about trying to adapt to do at home when we study rocks and minerals.

Vicki also had lots of fun playing in the water flowing into the trough.  The little girl was quite wet by the time we were ready to head home.

Overall the trip was a lot of fun but I don't think I'll be doing it again until they are a little older.  It ended up being a two hour drive each way, I don't think they actually learned much since they payed very little attention to the guide and keeping track of both of them in the caves was exhausting for me.

Wordless Wednesday

Tot Trays - FINALLY!!

The kids were away for the weekend with Daddy to visit Granny Franny so I finally had a chance to reorganize all our school supplies and set up some trays for Vicki.   Vicki came back a few days earlier than Georgie so I was able give the trays a try without Georgie "helping".

The trays were actually small baskets I bought at the dollar store.  I thought baskets would be easier for her than trays to transport stuff in without spilling.  Plus, the dollar store didn't have trays and I didn't feel like placing an order with Oriental Trading or Rainbow Resource.  I have them set up in a bookcase (from Ikea) with doors on the lower shelves.   The doors will be kept shut and latched except during school time.

I set up five baskets in the cabinet.  The two boxes on the top shelf are puzzle cards - flash cards that are in two pieces and fit together like a puzzle.  We've had these for a couple of years and haven't used them much but I decided they would be a good thing to add to our school day.  They were in the cabinet only because I didn't find another place to put them but these were the first thing Vicki chose (of course).

I couldn't get the picture of the box to orient correctly.  Blogger has decided that is was meant to be sideways so there it stays.  I gave Vicki between 5 and 10 card sets (some were harder than others - simple words and animals were the easiest) and she had a lot of fun putting them together.  When she'd finish, she'd yell "I Won!!"   Evidently that is the cue to mean she's finished with something because she did the same thing after each activity.    I'm going to rotate these into our Tot Tray activities since she enjoyed them so much. 

At first I had to remind her to clean her stuff up and put the basket away but by our second day doing them she had it down pretty good.  The cabinet is at the perfect level for her to be able to look at things, pull them out and put them back by herself.

The next activity she chose was pompoms and colored shot glasses (plastic ones from the dollar store).   She sorted the pompoms by color. 

 

The second day she played with these she decided she wanted to stack the glasses into a castle and pretend the screw them together using the otoscope from the play doctor kit.  I'm planning to make some magnet pompoms and put them into the Tray rotation with magnet sheets from Making Learning Fun and Confessions of a Homeschooler.   I'll probably also do a sensory bin with pompoms, spoons and scoops.

The next basket had beads, pipe cleaners and an old Parmesan cheese container to hold them steady (I saw this idea on Shannon's Tot School).  She had fun putting the beads on the pipe cleaners and pushing them all the way down into the container. 

The second day I tried to encourage her to make bracelets but she had more fun pushing the pipe cleaners all the way through the beads instead of leaving the beads on them.  She also loved running her fingers through the beads.  These will also be put into rotation with the shot glasses and a spoon for color sorting to give a little variety.

Our next bin had a number dry erase book and marker.  She did very well tracing the numbers (I really expected just scribbling since that's what she does on any worksheets she gets) and even held the marker fairly close to properly.  I have a few other dry-erase boards with numbers, letters, addition, shapes and a blank doodle page that I will rotate with this book.  This was easily the one she played with the longest.

Next she did some cutting practice.  She likes using scissors but pretty much only makes single cuts into the edge of the paper.  I included colored paper and colored foam.  Some of the paper had cutting lines drawn on them but she pretty much ignored it.  Once she gets a little better at cutting I may include pages from the Kumon cutting practice books.

Our last bin was foam stickers and paper.  She didn't show much interest in that one.  I'll probably keep stickers in the rotation just because it's so easy and she usually likes them. I'll alternate foam stickers with paper stickers.

I'm hoping these baskets will keep her occupied when I sit down with Georgie to do Math and Reading in the mornings.  We won't get a chance to see how it works until next week because we're spending the next few days preparing for Steph's Sweet 16 party being held Saturday. 

To see what others are doing check out Preschool Corner & 5K Too at Homeschool Creations.