First Day of School

Caratunk Wildlife Refuge ~ Crystal Scavenger Hunt!

Today we went on a scavenger hunt with a group from the Natural Families RI Meet-Up group. We had such a great time, I decided to label the day our First Day of School. Since this is our first year homeschooling, I took advantage of the freedom we have by picking my own first day... after we had it - that way, I knew it was going to start off on the right foot!

One of the wonderful women in the group had taken the time to come early and hide crystals along the path. Then, she wrote a story about how the crystals were hidden by gnomes in the forrest. It was so cute! The group of kids had a great time listening to the story and find the crystals while we walked.

After the hunt, we had a picnic lunch and the kids played with a very patient frog they found over in a small pond. Unfortunately, the only picture I have from the hunt itself is one that wasn't very good - you can barely make out Sam and Anika through the branches and leaves...

Shortly after the picnic, the rest of the group left, but we decided to stay since it was one of my rare days off from work. I wanted to take advantage of being able to stay until we were all ready to go - and the kids definitely weren't ready! Sam had the forsight to bring a bag of carefully chosen toys. He emptied the legos onto the blanket and then he and Anika proceeded to spend a very pleasent time together building.

After Lego building, we explored our surroundings a bit. There was an old building on-site that looked like it may have been there since the area was first settled. Unfortunately, it was locked, so we couldn't get a look inside. There was also a more modern looking shed that was unlocked, but it turned out to be inhabited with some mean looking wasps, so we decided to leave them to their endeavors and explore elsewhere.

Once the kids felt the need to rest a bit, we headed back to the blanket to play with trains and read books. If  I'd been thinking further ahead, I would have brought the library book we have about the settlers. Oh well, I'm still new to this!

A little while later, the kids were ready for another walk in the woods. This was nice since it was less hectic without the big crowd.

We found a neat creak that had a bridge built across it. After the bridge, the land was elevated falling down to the sides in what appeared to be a man-made walking path for times of flooding. Very muddy land down below gave proof that the creek could easily spread when fed a lot of rain.  Sections of land were bisected by what looked to be very old stone walls, some crumbled, some still standing. I wondered if the land where we stood had been all farmland way back when...

Further down the path, another bridge and yet another patient frog sunning himself in the water. I'm sure he was grateful to be just a bit out of reach of little grabbing fingers.

I loved watching them explore and have fun. For that day, they forgot how much they normally get on each others nerves - there was no fighting, no arguing, just two happy kids learning about the world around them in the best environment to experience it! No desks required :)