Nature Treasure Hunts with Kids

There are lots of ways to make hiking more enticing to kids. I have one friend who ran ahead and hid little toys along the trail for her young daughter to find as she walked. There's always the alphabet game or rainbow game: find something that starts with every letter, or in every color, in order, as you walk along the trail. 

We have a really great program in our area (central Vermont and New Hampshire) called Valley Quests that has largely done this job for us. Valley Quests are simply walks or hikes in the area made into treasure hunts. There is a quest box at the end-- the top of the mountain or whatever the destination is-- containing a log book to sign your name and write a message if you desire, a tidbit of information about the site, and a handmade stamp with an ink pad so you can make a stamp and remember you were there.  (You could stamp on anything; we own one of the Quest books so we've taken to collecting all our stamps in the back of that.) Along the way there are clues to mark your journey: a huge burl on the side of a tree, an old stone wall, a distant view of a particular mountain from a certain spot.

I have absolutely loved them. There isn't any actual treasure to collect, besides the stamp and the satisfaction of finding the box, which is sometimes pretty tricky! But just having the clues to read and the thrill of being the first to spot this or that landmark is motivating and fun. 

Countless times when I have had time to "kill" with one kid while waiting to pick the other up from an activity, I've gone to the Valley Quest site, where you can search by town, and checked out what quests might be in the vicinity. I am continually impressed that we find special little spots we never knew about this way, even though my husband and I have lived in this area for twenty years.

Where's M?

I feel it is important to note that in general I do not love scavenger-hunt-type things; give a group of kids (or their chaperones!) a scavenger hunt to do on a museum field trip, for example, and you can guarantee they will race through the museum frantically checking things off while being blind to anything and everything not on The List. Scavenger hunts can falsely prescribe what's important and turn off any natural learning or interest. Stepping off my soap box now... Somehow Valley Quests feel different; they introduce us to new natural places, and they make us actually slow down on a walk and really look at all the details around us. Since these quests take place in nature, quite often things have changed a bit since the quest author wrote the clue and now the young sapling is a full-grown tree or the rotting log is fully covered in moss. A "birch with bark so white" took us a long time because it had lost all its bark since the clue had been written. But it's neat to look and look and look and only adds to the excitement when we figure those things out too. 

Finally found it!

Collecting the stamp

Found it!

They aren't all big hikes either-- lots of them are quite short indeed. We've even done a Civil-War-themed cemetery quest, as well as a quest to the tiniest park that we never would have noticed otherwise in downtown Lebanon, NH.

Civil-War-themed cemetery quest

Quest to a tiny downtown park

Our love of Quests inspired my kids and I to make one of our own this year. It was a process, but pretty straight-forward, because the Valley Quest site lays out the steps and materials needed very clearly. We had several fun outings, choosing to do our research on especially nice days, as we tried to settle on a location for our Quest. There was some debate about where it should be-- we didn't want it to be too intense or long of a hike so as not to scare some people away from doing it. We wanted it to be relatively convenient for us to check in on from time to time. We wanted it to be a special spot, with a defined destination, not just a random walk. We wanted it to be in the woods, not in a busy or residential area where it would get accidentally spotted or messed with. Eventually we came to agreement. 

And then we walked it some more. We all brought along clipboards or notebooks and jotted down ideas for fun landmarks and clues. Back at home, we synthesized them into an order. In a few separate sittings, we word-smithed a bit, deciding not to stress ourselves out with rhyming (many Quests we'd done, but not all, seemed to rhyme). We also decided to draw a rough, not-to-scale map to go with it-- my son took this on. We decided to make it a riddle Quest, with blanks to fill in as you go and then some letters to unscramble at the end because my daughter had really enjoyed a Quest of that type we'd done before. Finally, we did a little basic research about the Appalachian Trail and wrote up a paragraph about it to include in our box, because our Quest happens to be located along it. 

Hard at work

Finally, we were down to a really fun art project: carving a rubber stamp. Each Quest has its own unique stamp. We had some different ideas about what our stamp should be. In the end, we had such fun carving the stamps and liked them all so much that we decided to put all three in our finished box and let Questers themselves decide which they wanted to use.       

We submitted our Quest to Vital Communities, the organization that manages them, and they accepted it and posted it to their site. Find it here! 

In our finished plastic Quest box we placed: a small notebook to be a log book, a pencil, a manual pencil sharpener, our stamps, an ink pad, and our card of information about the area. 

It was fun to work on a joint project together, and doing so was a reminder that, with my kids almost five years apart and with different temperaments, it can be pretty challenging to work on a joint project together and meet everybody's needs and wishes! But we did it. Like any big, long-term project, there's a sense of satisfaction when all the pieces come together in the end. (And when we visited our box in the woods recently, after first placing it there about a month ago, it was a reward to find that three people had already visited and signed the log book.) 

We're pretty proud of our Quest and if you ever find yourself in the "Upper Valley" (the Connecticut River Valley area of central Vermont and New Hampshire) with a little extra time on your hands, you might want to check it out. Find our own full Quest here!  

Do you have any programs like Valley Quest in your area, or do you do anything like this to make walks more enticing for your kids?  

Fun for Kids Outside (at Home) in the Middle of Winter

Boy in Woods with Stick

"Exploring" in the woods with a stick in hand is how this boy is happiest. The above photo is a rare moment of calm, though; usually he's using his latest, greatest stick as a club to whack things, or pretending it's a spear/sword/bow. 

Both my kids always end up finding activities to be engrossed in outdoors in all seasons, even on the rare days when they at first say they didn't feel like going out. 

We try to go outside every day even during this season of cold and dark. It's easy to find things to do when there is fresh snow: we head out with the purpose of shoveling steps and porches, or sledding, or building a snow creation. But most of the time we bundle and head out just for the sake of the routine of getting out, even when no specific purpose particularly calls us. While I love our family outings to go cross-country skiing or ice skating, just hanging out in the yard on an average weekday afternoon when it's twenty degrees outside is not always something I personally feel like. But it's always worth just doing. This is a lesson I have had to learn over and over. They find things to do. Outdoors has the power to restore every day, not just on the fair-weather days. Cheeks turn pink, moods lift, conversations are had that wouldn't have been had face-to-face at the kitchen table, treasures are discovered, games invented. Afterward we all feel more ready for whatever is next, more tired-in-a-good-way at the end of the day, more connected with the world around us. 

Here are some of the things my kids have been loving to do outside right now.

Fun for Kids Outside (at Home) in the Middle of Winter:

• Go sledding. My kids don't even require a sled lately.    

• Snurf. W's snurfer has provided a lot of entertainment. 

• Build a snow person or fort or other creation. Compare said creations or build together. 
• Shovel the steps or porch.   

• Shovel a path around the perimeter of your yard. We started doing this years ago for our dog, who doesn't like to walk through deep snow. Now he's older and doesn't venture too far regardless, but we've kept up the habit. We all use it, and creating it after a big snow is a satisfying project. 

• Look for animal tracks and try to follow where they go. Sometimes we take photos of them with Google Lens and try to identify them. They love to imagine the busy nightlife of the animals right in our backyard. Tiny little mouse prints are just as cool to see as deer. 
• Venture into the woods. W especially loves to go beyond our fenced yard and "explore" in the woods. He loves to check out remnants of an old foundation, find perfect sticks for doing this or that, or play hide and seek in one area for a while. They discover things just by being there. A few weeks ago they discovered little spots like air bubbles on the bark of an evergreen tree behind our garage. When they poked at the spots with a stick, clear, gooey pitch/sap came out, sometimes as much as half a teaspoon. They tried to "collect" it and used it to glue leaves to stumps and things. Hopefully they weren't harming the tree, but they both were so joyful discovering this neat little phenomenon. 

Harvesting pitch

• Dig a tunnel through a snowbank and try to crawl through. 
• Bring hot chocolate in a thermos and drink it outdoors. 
• Throw snowballs at a target-- the swing set, a certain tree, the fence post. 
• Snow volcano-- usually I don't plan at all for outside time, but one day I brought the supplies out for this snow volcano I'd seen online, and they got a kick out of it. After a while M had fun just spreading around the colorful foam we'd created.

• Spray colored water on snow. M enjoys putting water and food coloring in a spray bottle and misting the snow banks or snow sculptures. 
• Take photos of cool things, like these upside-down icicles we found.

• Go for a walk. While the kids never bore of the yard, some days I make them go for a walk. They search ever-optimistically for dropped antlers, climb the snow banks, and generally continue to act like kids outdoors even when we are covering some distance. 

Finding our New Groove for Year Two: Homeschool Curriculum

We are entering our second year of homeschool and we've all settled in more. In my last post I wrote about our revamped schedule for year two as well as changing the space we use in our house. 

In this post I wanted to share my two cents on curricula. We've made some changes from last year, adding some new subjects and deciding to forgo packaged curriculum in certain areas. Here are my thoughts on the homeschool curricula I bought or planned for each of my children (a kindergartner and a fifth grader) this year.  

Homeschool Curriculum We're Using

Math

5th grade: Primary Mathematics

I am using Primary Mathematics from Singapore Math with my son this year for the second year because it worked for us last year! It feels like serious, down-to-business math. There are no bells and whistles, and it is cheap. The teacher's guide is written for homeschool (it is called a home instructor's guide). The materials you occasionally need are usually things you already have in the house. It jumps right into concepts, and aims high, which is good because my son catches on pretty quickly in math. The activity suggestions move from concrete (working with actual blocks when introducing volume, for example), to pictorial representations of the same, to abstract (solving equations or word problems).  

Kindergarten: Dimensions Math

We wanted to stick with Singapore Math for my kindergartner, but found that Primary Mathematics doesn't start until the first-grade level, so we tried Dimensions, which is another line from the same company. Dimensions is in full color, with more bells and whistles. There are a good number of materials (game boards and cards and such) that can be downloaded and printed. One thing to note is that Dimensions (unlike Primary Mathematics) is written for use in a classroom. It goes at a slower pace so as to encompass a wide range of abilities. There are many activity suggestions within a lesson to get at the same concept; we don't do them all unless M needs a lot of extra practice on a concept. Most of the games are written for a small group but we can adapt them to play at home, and she loves them. There are so many developmentally appropriate, play-based, hands-on activities. We've used paintbrushes and water and chalk and play dough and flour to practice forming numbers. We've played hopscotch and card games and sorted objects around the house. It is very interactive and dependent on an adult's involvement the entire time (this may be kindergarten-specific, but I'm not sure). There are a couple kindergarten workbook pages each lesson, but they only take about two minutes. The many active components are the bulk of the lesson.  

Reading 

I didn't buy any curriculum for reading. 

Last year I purchased an expensive program that I knew well from my classroom teaching days, that I really believe in. Research on good teaching and on how kids get to be better readers was embedded. The philosophy of all the lessons was excellent. W learned so much and we had some wonderful experiences with it. But it was a bit intense. Too intense to read through and plan for every day, too intense for my son to take it all in some days. It added some unnecessary stress for us both, which was silly because reading was already a major strength of his. Plus, this year, the thought of buying something that expensive, times two kids (plus a similar cost for the same authors' writing programs, times two kids again) was overwhelming. So I did a lot of online research for ideas of what to teach, dug out my guides to best practices for teaching reading, and sketched out my own plans for the year. 

For my 5th grader, I have a plan of several genres we'll spend time reading for a month or two at a time and discussing. (I don't choose specific titles for him, but rather check out a bunch of books within a genre and let him select from those based on interest). He's reading fiction right now and I'm managing to not kill the joy in that with too much teaching, so my plan has been a success so far! I try to spend a few minutes each day before he goes off to read modeling a strategy or tip for being a good reader of fiction. This is usually a thinking/analyzing strategy because that's the part about reading that he doesn't do on his own naturally. I encourage him to jot for about three minutes of his reading time a day in a reading notebook-- about theme or character traits or the author's style, etc. I'm looking forward to helping him delve into fantasy and mythology and reading about particular topics in history and more at other points in the year. 

And with my daughter, who is just beginning to grasp the bits and pieces of what it is to read, reading time is a whole other, exciting story. I didn't purchase curriculum for her either. I hope to share more about this soon.  

Writing 

We're forging ahead on our own without packaged curriculum in this area as well. Same explanation and decision as above, but in writing. I'll share more about our work in writing soon!

Foreign Language

5th only (for now): Rosetta Stone online homeschool subscription 

We decided to experiment with my oldest learning a foreign language this year. When we asked W what language he would be interested in, he said immediately, as I had predicted he might, "Could I do Greek?" Mostly born from his love of the Percy Jackson series, he has learned a lot about Greek mythology so he was intrigued. The pros and cons of different languages were discussed. After he realized that Greek uses a different alphabet, he at first backtracked and thought more about something seemingly easier like Spanish or French. We encouraged him to choose what he was most excited about. Who knows if he will stick with or get real use out of any language he learns. (I don't "use" my six years plus two college semesters of Spanish. But I'm glad I learned it. It helps me have a better sense of the world. And it would come back to me and help me if I moved somewhere with a lot of Spanish speakers.) So we decided to treat a language for now just like any other interest: it's great to see how curious he is about this one right now, and see where that leads. 

As far as program, there were a lot of choices and we chose Rosetta Stone mostly because of name recognition. (There were also back-to-school promotions so I was able to get it for a lot less than it is currently offered for a 12-month subscription.) W has been logging in and using the program a few times a week. It jumps right in, teaching vocabulary and short phrases, and it focuses on listening and speaking right away and primarily. W loves to speak and see if he gets full credit for echoing the pronunciations. He has learned that if he rolls his Rs, he gets higher points. There are also reading and writing components that have recently started (a Greek keyboard comes up on the screen and he clicks the appropriate keys to spell a word). He loves it and feels so pleased with himself for knowing bits and pieces of something so foreign. But every so often, there will be a day where he feels really confused. While Rosetta Stone is billed as something homeschoolers can do independently, and it is, sometimes it really helps if I sit with him and we work through it together for a bit. It introduces things through pictures and listening and speaking. It never provides the English translation. So it's a whole new way to learn. Sometimes he has to really be a detective and it takes a while to figure things out, taking notes to eliminate possibilities of what a word that keeps appearing might mean (often it's not what he first guesses it to mean). 

M is intrigued and likes to watch and is picking up on bits and pieces, so she may yet join in the foreign language adventure this year-- we'll see. Important note, though: we can only have one account on each online subscription, so would need to pay for another entire subscription for a second child to use the program. Also of note: the Rosetta Stone program does not seem to teach the names of letters of the Greek alphabet, so we researched that and learned it ourselves by listening to a YouTube video a bunch of times.  

Grammar

5th only: Easy Grammar

This program has worked well for us since last spring. We do a lesson a few times a week, with an accompanying workbook page for practice. The teacher's guide is the only thing I purchased, as it includes the student pages and is reproducible. The parts of speech and sentence structure were foreign to W, and quite frustrating at first, but he is catching on and loves to impress/stump his dad now by giving him sentences to mark. This program starts with identifying prepositions and prepositional phrases, so once students learn how to do that, it makes identifying the subject(s) of the sentence much easier. This program does not teach diagramming sentences on branches the way I vaguely remember being taught in sixth grade. I thought about trying to teach diagramming the old-fashioned way, but decided that it wasn't the diagramming that was important but rather meaning-- understanding the functions of different parts of a sentence. This program teaches this in a simple, bare bones way.    

Spelling/Word Study

5th only: Words their Way

I am a big fan of Words their Way because it is a small, concrete way to easily personalize for your child and give them exactly the challenge they need. I wrote a post last year with more details on how this program works. This overview book contains spelling inventories and directions on administering them to help you find what level your child is at in his spelling (what types of features in words they are on the cusp of understanding). Once you know the developmental stage they are at (which is not a grade level), there are multiple books available full of curated word lists for the various stages to be used as spelling/vocabulary words for the week. All the words in a list contain a similar feature (such as long a sound) and students have to learn the generalization, or rule, to remember which ones are spelled in which way and why. Kids aren't simply memorizing words, but learning about word meanings, spelling rules, and exceptions to the rules. We work with one of these word lists each week, studying, defining, and doing some activities with the words, and a spelling test at the end of the week. 

Phonics

Kindergarten only: Guidance from Wilson Language approach and Fundations program

The basic idea of the Wilson Language approach is systematic, consistent teaching of the way the English language works. There is an order in which it makes sense to teach letter sounds and later other spelling rules. I had used the Fundations program in my first-grade classroom. For this year I bought the Kindergarten Fundations teacher's guide and a few individual materials I thought were important. I got a poster of Fundations key words for each letter of the alphabet (a, apple, /a/; b, bat, /b/, and so on) and I am glad I did because M is fascinated by it and utilizes it constantly. I also bought a pocket chart in which we can move word cards around to form sentences, and letter cards around to form words. My mother-in-law passed on to me a set of letter cards she had in her attic. I bought a dry-erase board with special lines to help M learn how to form her letters. I made a file-folder and sticky-note version of a magnetic letter board (see picture below). And I already had a supply of dry-erase markers. We add more letters to M's repertoire each week. It's amazing how empowering this is to her and how much she likes to show off her latest letter-sound skills. The program focuses on all the lower-case letters first, because those are what we use most of the time. I like Fundations, but as it turns out, I could have gone without the teacher's guide; my one kid at home is going at a quicker pace than a class of kindergartners would and we often do more than one day's lesson in a session. I probably could have forged my own way with just my pocket chart and white board and by following a general scope and sequence for language learning and we would have been okay. 

Cursive

5th grade only: Can-Do Cursive book from Handwriting Without Tears 

W knows how to write in cursive, but handwriting has always been an area he needs reminders in. This book is just review of the finer points, and he does a practice page a couple times a week. 

Keyboarding

5th grade only: TypingClub 

I wrote recently about our experience with TypingClub as a way to learn how to type efficiently and keyboarding skills in general. We're still using it a few times a week for 15 minutes or so each time and his WPM is increasing! It is online, free, and students can use it mostly independently.  

Science

5th grade: Mystery Science

Kindergarten: Mystery Science 

I am so impressed with Mystery Science. A year-long homeschool subscription is inexpensive; it includes every child in a household, so we don't pay more to utilize both the kindergarten and grade five lessons. They are online-based science lessons, but I think that can give the wrong impression until you've actually done a "mystery" (as each lesson is called) with kids. These are by no means videos to watch passively, though they do include brief video. There are great introductions to topics that hook my kids every time. The videos pose questions and contain lots of stop-and-think moments. They contain well-chosen, appropriate, short footage of animal behavior, or volcanoes, or whatever the topic is being studied. They align with the Next Generation Science Standards. And almost every lesson centers on active, hands-on activities. Science class was never my favorite subject when I was in school, so I love having this company to make science feel fun and accessible. Last week we set up a fifth-grade experiment to test how well mold grows in different conditions (the kids came up with the variables they wanted to test). Tonight my daughter reenacted the defensive animal behaviors she had observed today-- a scared praying mantis is something to see. The lessons are written for classrooms (and I know a lot of classrooms that use them) but they include specific instructions for using them in a homeschool setting as well (very little modification needed). Usually household supplies and the online printables are all the materials you need but occasionally you need to buy something special ahead of time like the red worms we are currently housing for a various observations and experiments this week (eww).  

We currently have pet worms!

Social Studies

I didn't buy any curriculum for social studies because we are making use of free curriculum online-- some school districts put their entire curricula online, so if there is a school you think is doing things well, it's worth checking to see if they have done this. There is a school in Missouri that has an incredible amount of information online. I have found that their social studies units and lessons align with topics we wanted to study this year and seem really well thought-out. These include activity ideas and clickable links to great relevant web sites. I have downloaded these and use them as a guide for social studies. (I feel a little like I am stealing, but these are free and available to the public online...) 

We also may use, as we did last year, some of the Core Knowledge (also free, also downloadable) units as backup or if we end up with extra time this year. These are highly traditional-- essentially mini textbooks for students and discussion ideas for the teacher-- but we certainly gleaned lots of knowledge from them on a few particular topics last year. We also always check out a lot of library books to go with the topics we are studying in social studies.  

Art

For art we do various projects together and try to keep it fun and encouraging. I find ideas everywhere. Last week we made color wheels-- a younger-kid version with primary and secondary colors, and a bigger-kid version that included intermediate colors as well. Here and here are some things we did last year. 

Trying to imitate their llamas' facial expressions

Music

For music, in the past we've checked out venues in person or online, listened to and learned about types of music and specific well-known pieces of music as well as some musicians and musicals. Music comes a little less naturally to me than art, but as with art, I just find ideas everywhere without a master plan for the year (here's a great web site and podcast we just discovered). Each of my kids is taking lessons in and practicing an instrument daily, so I feel that lets me off the hook a little. Here are some things we did and resources we used last year. 

P.E. 

We aren't doing anything formal (though, like everything else, there are homeschool P.E. curricula for sale online). We get outside daily for a good chunk of time late morning as well as after school. We go on lots of family hikes and bike rides on the weekends, as well as the occasional school-day hike; come winter there will be skiing and skating. Last year my son did P.E. at the public school twice a week, but as our local school isn't even open yet this year, we are holding off on that. But my kids are both able to participate in a masked, game-free, shortened soccer season this fall. I have plenty of web sites earmarked that a quick search of homeschool P.E. ideas yielded in case we need a boost of activity, but haven't needed to tap them yet.