• Sep. 9, 2007 - Outdoor classroom
This weekend the kids, my parents, and I attended an Alberta Parks conference in Crimson Lake Provincial Park in Rocky Mountain House. It was a free camping event for all volunteer stewards in the province, and since my parents and Nicholas are stewards I got to tag along.
I brought along Nick's Bible and journals with the thought that we'd find a few minutes to get Friday's work done at some point during the weekend. Unsurprisingly, we didn't find the time since we were too busy doing all sorts of other learning.
Nick began teaching himself how to sew on Thursday night and he ended up spending the entire drive to the camp sewing a pillow, a sleeping bag, and a parachute for his stuffed bear.
The learning continued once we got to the conference when the kids watched a puppet play about David Thompson, a huge name in local history. He was a fur trader, an explorer, and a map-maker who charted much of what is now Canada. Nick being the sponge that he is soaked up a lot of information from the very entertaining puppet show and is still going around singing the theme song.
The next morning, I took the kids down to the lake where we spent a couple of hours catching minnows with small nets. We caught 15 minnows of various size as well as a water bug which was promptly returned to the lake when he seemed to be hurting the minnows. We also spotted several leeches swimming in the water which we made a point of avoiding. We discussed food chains, life cycles, and habitats.
Our afternoon adventures included geocaching and archery. Nicholas fell in love with geocaching and the excitement of tracking down markers. He's insisting that Grandpa is going to buy a GPS. Failing that, he wants to use some of our funding money to buy one.
He had a bit of a slower start with the archery as it took him some time to get the knack of it. I was happy to see that he stuck with it, though, as he often abandons any endeavors he can't quickly master. I'm still not sure if he had more fun shooting the arrows or collecting them but it was great to see him having so much fun.
On the way home today the conference concluded with a visit to the Rocky Mountain House Historical Site. We followed along on an interpretive walk where parks personnel showed us various artifacts and re-creations of building from the fur trading period, and we learned about what life was like for folks who lived in and visited the forts. Nick flitted back and forth between following the walk and chasing grasshoppers so I suppose he was fitting both social studies and zoology into one afternoon.
On top of all the hands-on learning we had the chance to do this weekend, we had a lot of fun. It's always great to leave behind the familiarity of home and routine to explore new places. The kids were both generally well-behaved and I think we're all feeling mentally revitalized if physically exhausted! |
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