Home School Group Activities: Caroling at the Convalescent Home

In honor of heading back to school, I am spending the week highlighting a few of the "extra" activities our home school group took part in this year.

If you want a brief summary of our group and what we do, read the beginning of yesterday's post here.

And remember, we did these things as a home school group, but you could easily do them with your boy scout troop, your church group or the members of your family.

I'm just here to share the fabulous ideas of my group in hopes that they inspire you.

On to activity number 2: 

Christmas Caroling at the Convalescent Home.

Danielle arranged this activity for us.
She chose a place her mom visited and had a contact for.
Danielle chose mostly familiar carols for us to sing and sent out and email with the words so we could practice with our kiddos ahead of time.
I think we even practiced together at some of our weekly nature days.
But I could be wrong about that and am just thinking now that it seems like a good idea.
Whatever.
We prepped the kids beforehand with what to expect and how to behave.
(you'll see how great that worked for my kids in a minute)
My kids were excited to take part and a little nervous to sing in front of other people.

Danielle's mom, Claire, was our music leader.
Her cheerful and energetic attitude helped the kids feel more at ease.
All of the parents sang along too and that helped.

I obviously did not give William enough prep as to what proper stage presence is supposed to look like.
I also did not remove the toy plane from his hand.
The toy plane he is using as a gun.
He kept his shirt up like that the whole time.
I didn't tell him to put it down--I just took pictures of it and chuckled to myself.

James was into it.
He loved Hark, the Herald Angels Sing best.
It's in the Charlie Brown Christmas movie so its a favorite.

Lilly stayed in Daddy's arms for the singing.
Side note--I am so in love with her hair like this and with those red bows.--dying.

After we sang to a larger group in the dining room, we took off down the halls to visit some of the guests who are no longer mobile.

My favorite part of the event was when we entered the room of a 107 year old woman.
That's right--107!
She is their oldest resident and the director told us that she would love to see the children.
She did.
She could hardly lift her head from the pillow, but she smiled a great toothless grin at all the kids.
She especially loved William and kept smiling and waving at him from her bed.


This woman was bald and no longer had teeth.
Her eye sight was going and her speech was already gone.
But she still loved life.
She took such great joy in seeing those kids in her room.
The director told us that her secret to such a long life was eating a hamburger and a bag of chips for lunch every day.
And drinking a cup of coffee.
And also, being in love with life.
Even the small part of it she experiences from her bed, she still loves it.
As evidenced by her big smile.
She was such a sweet lady.

It was a great couple of hours with the kids.
A lot of the people we sang to were very happy to see us.
Some of the people we saw were lonely or hurting.
It was good for the kids to see those people and, hopefully, encourage them to show compassion to them.
It is good to get them out of their world and begin to experience a much bigger world.


Next up; science class!  Come back for that fun.
Love from,
Greta

Home School Group Activities: Bake Sale

I think I am in denial.

It's back to school time.

Don't get me wrong.

I love school.

I am really excited about the upcoming year and all the great books the kids and I will be reading.

I'm looking forward to working in our nature journals, learning geography, history, French, and lots of hikes.

I am even excited about math.

But I will be sorry to see summer go.

I will miss slow mornings and long days with no agenda.

I am going to have to be a bit more structured with our time.

A bit.

And with school days looming in the very near future, I've been thinking about our home school group.

I am blessed to be a part of an amazing group of home schooling families.

We are all schooling in a similar fashion--not identical-but similar.

We meet once a week for hikes in nature and nature study.

We all explore and get excited over things like the discovery of a Great Blue Heron nest or a dead fish in the middle of the trail.

"How did it get there?  What kind of fish is it?"

The kids document their discoveries in their nature journals.

We're learning natural science, botany, biology, geology and so much more.

Then they play and we visit.

It is the highlight of every week.

In addition to our weekly nature hikes, we also visit cultural destinations.

Last year we went to places like Olvera Street and China Town in Los Angeles.

We visited the San Juan Mission and the Natural History Museum.

We're building quite an impressive field trip list.

And then, on top of all that great stuff, we also have another monthly activity planned by each family.

They ranged from a science class to a Valentines Day party.

These activities are just one more way for us to enrich our kids' education.

And, they are a lot of fun.

In the upcoming week, I am going to share some of these activities in the hope that you might be inspired to add some of them to your own home school group.

Or, for you non-home schooling types, to your kid's lives in some other way.

There is always room for making our kids' lives rich in meaningful, valuable ways.

I hope you enjoy our ideas.

And please, if you have any of your own, do share with me.

First up, the bake sale.

One of the moms in our group, Jen, came up with the idea of raising money for a nature spot we often visit.
She thought a bake sale would be the way to go.
It was.
We all donned our aprons, baked treats and sold them from our spot on the sidewalk.
It was a grand success.

Jen chose the Bolsa Chica Wetlands as the recipient of our donation.
She put up a display board with some info, and pictures so our patrons would know where their money was going.

Of course, there were books too.

Every one showed up around 10 am on the corner near Jen's house where we set up shop.
There wasn't a lot of foot traffic, but there were a lot of cars lured in by our signs and waving.
There were lots of home made treats to choose from.

As well as some candy

and fresh lemonade.

Jen made signs for the kids to hold and bring in the customers.

This was William's favorite part of the day.

He wasn't content to just hold the sign either.
He liked yelling at cars too.

Before long, we were busy.

The kids ran the show.
They took orders, they poured drinks,

they served, took money and made change.
You know, we've gotta give those home schooled kids opportunities to be socialized.
Oh wait, did that sound sarcastic?

They even provided curbside service.

And they hustled to fill those orders.

And when business was slow

they made their own traffic.
(helpful tip, have kids bring bikes and scooters to play with during the slow times)

Jen also provided bubbles and chalk for the kids to play with.

By the end of the morning, the kids had raised over $100 for Bolsa Chica Wetlands.
And nothing much was left.
Except for some gumballs.

It was a great success.

Lots of fun for the kids, lots of different kinds of learning experiences, and a chance to give back to a place we love to visit.

We already have another bake sale on the books for this fall.

If you can, come by for some top notch goodies when we do.

Love from,

Greta

Back on the Trail at Monrovia Canyon Park

It's been almost 3 months since I've done a real hike.

I have missed it terribly.

Getting outside, amidst the quiet, the towering trees, the birds and butterflies, and the splashing creeks soothes my soul.

It restores me.

It fills me up.

And, even a hike we've done before always offers adventure.

I love adventure.

When our hike takes us to a new place, it's even better.

Because there is a part of me that longs for discovery.

The truth is, I miss the days of travel.

I miss spur of the moment road trips.

I miss flying far away.

I miss finding a town we've never been to and setting off to explore it's streets, shops and restaurants.

Right now, some of those things are just not possible.

Others require more thought and effort.

I could give up--wait until my kids are more grown, we have more money and things are easier.

Or, I could just do my best with what I've got right now.

That's what I do.

We may only be driving 40 minutes away, but it's still a brand new place.

It's a chance to discover a great little town--Old Town Monrovia--who knew it was so great?

And up the hill from the perfectly vintage down town is Monrovia Canyon Park.

I strapped Davy into the Baby Bjorn and we were back on the trail!

We chose this park because it has a year round, spring fed waterfall.

In Southern California, aside from the beach and swimming pools, year round water is unusual.

And if you are doing a hike in late August, cold water had better be involved with it somehow.

The waterfall was divine.

But before we even got to the waterfall, the hike was full of magic.

The drive up into the foothills from the 210 freeway led us past an old gas station, the 3 old pumps still standing out front.  (william wanted us to come back and take pictures)

As mentioned, Old Town Monrovia is lined with old, brick buildings, and it's full of charm.

I can't wait to go back and explore more.

Once you get into park, you can't believe you were in civilization moments ago.

It's a big park, full of oaks and sycamores, lots of green and lots of wildlife.

Yes.  Wildlife.

We saw BEARS.

Not just this one outside the nature center, but real bears--California Black Bears.
I had to feed Davy before we started hiking and I headed to a place for me to sit and the kids to run around.  
A gentleman standing in the path where we were walking said, "be careful.  There are bears up there."
What?!?
Not wanting to miss the chance for our first bears in the wild sighting, we walked ahead a bit so we could see the mama and her cub.
They were working on getting into a trash can and completely ignoring us and the 4 other people watching them.
We didn't get too close.  They were probably 40 feet away.
After all, I was standing there nursing a baby and holding the hand of my 3 year old.
We couldn't have run very fast.
I didn't even go back to the car to get my camera, because we didn't want to stop watching them.
It was a complete thrill.
The kids couldn't believe it.


After Davy filled up, we tore ourselves away and hit the trail.
Every person we saw stopped us and warned us, "just want to let you know, there are some bears out..."
The ranger told us to be loud and crazy.
William said, "I'm good at that."


The trail to the falls starts at the bottom of the park and you can join up where you want, making your hike as long or short as you want.
We started at a lower point of the trail.
The kids promptly left it and went exploring.

They quickly found the creek and went in.

We ate lunch creek side while the kids built a dam, threw rocks and found wildlife.

We kept and ear out for the bears.

After our time at the creek, 2 of us decided to go onto the falls.
We drove up to start our hike at the shortest section of the falls trail--the 3/4 mile marker. (that's one way)
Typically our hikes are longer, but it was already 100 degrees  and we almost didn't make it out of our air conditioned cars.
Thankfully the trails is almost entirely shaded and not too strenuous.
The way to the falls is largely uphill, and the trail is narrow and quite steep.
It is not stroller friendly.
If you have a little runner, you'll want to hold onto their hands.

We were all very, very hot and sweaty by the time we made it to the falls.

I think we all wanted to turn back, even though it really wasn't a long hike.

But we pressed on and the pay off was glorious!

The waterfall was clear, cold perfection.
It took all my self control not to strip to my skivies and jump right in.
Next time I'll wear a bathing suit.
I've read the falls are very crowded on the weekend.
But on a 100 degree weekday, there were only 2 other people with us at the falls.


True to form, the kids started climbing around on the rocks

and found a natural water slide.
Pure joy!

They came back to the falls and some of the braver ones ventured right under the gushing water.
William stepped on a bee, and baby Joe fell in the creek, so there was drama.
There always is when you are hiking with little people.
We had 7 of them between the 2 of us.
But playing in that waterfall made it all worth it.

The hike back to the cars is mostly downhill.
It can be slippery, but really not hard to navigate.


I really can't say enough good things about this park.
Besides the waterfall, the rest of it was beautiful too.
And besides the bears, there was lots more wildlife to be found.
The kids found a frog and this lizard.

Miss Rebbecca found this dead dragonfly along the trail.

There were an amazing variety of butterflies.
Some were ones I had never seen before.
All of us walked right past this nest, but William, my eagle eye, spotted it.

As to hiking with a newborn, it wasn't bad.
He was a dream baby.
He ate on the go and slept in the Bjorn, covering both of us in sweat.

I will say that I am getting a new carrier asap.
I only used that Bjorn for all my babies when they were small and not for extended periods of time.
My shoulders and neck were killing by the end of the hike.

We were BEAT by the time we made it back to the car, but I am so happy we made it and are back on the trail.

The first hike with all 4 was a terrific success.
My kids are awesome!


My legs are feeling that hike today (yes, it doesn't take long for me to get out of shape) so we'll be sitting on the beach tomorrow instead of hiking.
I can't wait.
Happy weekend!
Love from,
Greta