We also took advantage of daddy being home and embarked on an adventure of Geocaching. This is something I'd been wanting to try with the boys and, after seeing it mentioned on another homeschooler's blog (of course I can't remember where it was now), I finally made a plan to do it.
Geocaching is, "a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location."
You can see why I thought the boys would like it. They LOVE a good treasure hunt.
And I loved the idea of doing something outdoors and active that the whole family could enjoy together.
That was free.
We didn't venture too far on our first attempt - turns out there are geocaches everywhere. We discovered there were three hidden in a nearby park that we frequent, so we thought we'd start there.
Somehow, I actually found the first one.
I know.
There were some trinkets inside (a keychain and some beads - all pink).
The boys took a bit of time to examine some of the huge trees that were lying on the ground, of course.
But first we had to decode a clue in order to find it.
Jack and Jill went past the hill to fetch a cache in wood. Hmmmm...
We didn't have any luck finding that cache. Or the next one. The boys still enjoyed it, though, especially when they got a turn using the GPS device to try and track the cache locations (we used an iphone app).
We will definitely try again with geocaching and hopefully our skills will improve with each adventure.
This week was a Cub Scout meeting week. Matthew continues to be the most enthusiastic Cub Scout to ever live anywhere ever.
It's a blurry picture and doesn't fully capture his enthusiasm, but the child counts down the days until each den meeting. He learned all about safety with his Tiger and Wolf den, while Michael learned about U.S. Citizenship (including a copy of the citizenship test that many of us who have lived in this country our whole lives would most likely fail). His Webelo Den also listened to a talk about WWI and WWII by a historian who read from the journal of a veteran.
My Bear Den talked about "What Makes America Special" and after the boring part of the meeting, we played a couple rounds of The Scrambled States of America - the boys LOVED that.
There wasn't much else noteworthy that happened this week. Aside from their regular school work, the boys spent a lot of time drawing and reading. They have these spontaneous collaborative drawings that they spend hours working on.
It's amazing how long a white board and new package of dry-erase markers can keep them occupied.
Matthew and I took some time to work on his Literature Pockets this week. We finished up The Gingerbread Man and will be moving on to Little Red Riding Hood next week.
He's really enjoyed working on these and I'll definitely be getting another "Pockets" book to do with him when we finish this one.
In my never-ending quest to keep the little guy occupied during school time, I purchased a booster seat so he could sit right at the table with us. He's not a big fan of the high chair anymore.
So far, he seems to like his new "seat," as he refers to it.
He also LOVES a good story - can't get enough of them these days. I often find him in his room looking at his books, like "Bear Bear See" (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See) and "Hat Oops" (Blue Hat Green Hat).
Yeah. It's pretty cute.
And that was our week!
We are looking forward to visiting with family over the next couple of weeks. There will be a Thanksgiving Feast, of course, and also a trip to Indiana. Needless to say, the boys are VERY excited about seeing both sets of grandparents soon.
Hope you had a great week and are finding many things to be thankful for this holiday.
~ Dori
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