Camp Creek Press

Just heard this word this week. With the rising cost of fuel, more people are opting to look into the fun things to do in their own area — just like we were discussing in my last post.

So here's another vote for visiting and appreciating everything your own community has to offer. Take a stay-cation!

Think of the benefits:

• Sleep in your own bed every night!
• The cleanliness of your room is not in question — it may not be 100% clean, but it’s not in question!
• No packing!
• No unpacking!
• No kids whining in the backseat while you’re stuck in traffic! No missed flights or lost luggage!
• Best of all — at the end of your stay-cation, you won’t be totally exhausted and in need of another vacation.

For our part, we sat down and did a little online research and came up with a long list of places to hike and paddle this summer that are within an hour’s distance from our house. And we live in the cornfields of the Midwest, so if we came up with 30 new places to explore, imagine what might be available to you!

Check out:

Get Away on Vacation — at Home

Real Simple: Kick Back, Relax, Vacation at Home

Ideas for the At-Home Vacation

Great Tips/Ideas for Spending Your Vacation at Home

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

George A. Moore

Our art class is visiting a different garden or nature preserve each week. Every time we visit one of these places I think of the people who work so hard to create and preserve them. A bit of woods, a bit of prairie, a special garden — so many wonderful (free!) resources right here in our own backyard.

Our own garden is blooming and growing, gorgeous with color, alive with insects, butterflies, birds, bees, toads. There are anthill cities, ladybugs stalking aphids, birds feasting in the mulberry tree and squabbling over birdseed. So much free entertainment! And when the sun sets, stargazing. There’s so much to do without ever leaving home.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

[T]he California-based State Education and Environmental Roundtable, a national effort to study environment-based education, found that schools that use outdoor classrooms, among other techniques, produce student gains in social studies, science, language arts and math; improved standardized test scores and grade-point averages; and enhanced skills in problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making. In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests that time in natural surroundings also stimulates children's creativity. — Richard Louv

Art class this morning at a beautiful nature preserve/park. Cold, overcast, and 30% chance of rain. Not ideal? But who knows what we might see on this cloudy day. Pictures later today!

Hi Lori,

What a wonderful interview! Thank you for the information. I have been doing some research on Reggio, homeschooling and other philosophies. I currently am a special education teacher in the public school system. For the most part I love my job; however, there are MANY things I don’t agree with. I have a almost 3 year old and 8 month old. I am reseraching my alternatives for them when it comes to education and I have a question for you. Everything I am reading seems to be art based, what if a child isn’t much into art? My daughter for example will paint, color, playdough, etc.f or about 10 minutes tops, but when it comes to running outside, dribbling a ball, or playing on a playground I can’t get her in! I guess I am wondering how she would fit into such models? Thank Eileen

Hi, Eileen - and thank you! While many people focus on the visual arts aspect of the Reggio approach, the Hundred Languages actually embrace kinesthetic learners - children do learn in different ways and can engage with a subject and express their knowledge by building, dancing, performing skits, dramatic play, and in many other active ways.

And while the visual arts (e.g., drawing, painting, collage) are important, an active child might be more engaged with building models, sculpting clay, creating large-scale dramatic play structures (e.g., child-size vehicles, buildings, rooms), etc.

The idea isn't to try to funnel a child toward visual arts, but rather give them a whole smorgasbord of choices - books about buildings and bridges and other structures *with* a fantastic array of blocks and other building materials, a great dress-up trunk *with* a stage to dance and perform on, an art studio with a quiet nook to draw in *and* an array of exciting things to build and scupt with. And when a child shows a particular interest, paying attention and providing them with what they need to take the work further.

If you are interested in the Reggio approach specifically, if you delve a little deeper you will find wonderful garden- and park-centered projects to read about.

Since you already know your child has a strong desire to be outside, you can meet her halfway and provide her with tools for learning outdoors - magnifying glass, binoculars, bug box, field guides, sandbox, outdoor building materials (rocks, shells, pinecones, etc.), a work area outdoors (perhaps a small table), scarves for running and dancing, a garden... We set up easels outdoors with pencils, oil pastels, and paint so that children can paint and play and draw and play - and there are so many exciting things to learn about outside!

You can read the whole interview and all of the comments here.

Happy Earth Day!

Are you doing anything to celebrate the day?

We’ve been celebrating our planet with our nature journals and visiting the local nature center.

We made that great field bag from a worn-out pair of pants.

We make lots of art out of recyclables and free things from around the house.

I hope you all get out to touch a bit of the Earth today with your kids.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike. — John Muir

I know this comment is after-the-fact for this conversation, but I am a "late reader" and so I'm only seeing this for the first time.

As soon as I read your post, Lori, I knew I *had* to write a comment because I still think about all the wonderful things that happened during our instrument project. Learning the instrument families --- no! Becoming *experts* on instrument families, learning how sounds travels, making the ears, the "Keyboard Controversy," all of it was amazing. It's all become a magical memory for me. One that keeps me motivated to keep trying projects in a public school setting even if it is hard and sometimes frustrating. One that reminds me all that children are capable of --- so much more than I sometimes give them credit for. One that encourages me to challenge kids. One that makes me mourn the loss of that class, and the simple fact that my own son will not ever get to experience that moment with those circumstances. (Although I hope to recreate it for him at home.)

Thank you for giving me another moment to relive that year!

I also wanted to share another story related to the "keyboard controversy." As estea pointed out, the piano is a string instrument, and, of course, we knew that as well, but the PROCESS they took to learn that fact was much more worthwhile for them since they had to discover it on their own. They learned so much more than how to classify a piano. They learned that everything written in books isn't necessarily true, as you mentioned. They learned how to debate. They learned how to make hypotheses and conclusions. (In the end, they decided that a piano was, indeed, a string instrument, BUT an electronic keyboard was a percussion instrument since it doesn't have strings.)

The story I was thinking of happened about that same time. A child in the class became very interested in the Loch Ness Monster. He asked me if it was real, and, of course, I answered, "I don't know. Why don't you try to find out?" So, he did! He checked out books on the subject, interviewed his classmates to see what they thought, and we probably looked online for information too. And then all of sudden, one day, his interest was gone. *Poof!* No more discussions, no questions, nothing. When I asked him about it, he replied, "Oh, I asked my dad what he thought, and he said it wasn't real. So now I know." And just like that, he lost so many valuable learning opportunities.

And now I've rambled for long enough. Thank you again, Lori, for writing about this!

Emily, thank you so much for taking the time to share this.