We were up before the sun started peaking into our windows. The atmosphere in our home is like any other first days. First day of school, first day of Vacation Bible School, first day of summer camp and all those first days in our lives.
By 7:30AM kids (a.k.a. our students) are ready to conquer their first day of 5th grade, 3rd grade and K4. We first fired up Bible from Abeka Academy, then following our schedule conquering Arithmetic and Language first. It was smooth ride, and we are done at 10:30AM. All subjects. Yahu!
Now what?
Time to reveal the first day surprise: hiking!
We drove them to one of the nearest state park in our area. While we were originally planning to take one of those easy trails, we ended up going to a moderate – 2.8 mile trail. Armed with a big bottle of water, a map, their ranger booklet and excited happy faces, off we go to the trail.
We took notice of what we see in the ground, identfying rocks, identifying plants and trees, to the different bark textures. Our sense of hearing plays a very important role of listening to sounds and identifying if it’s a cricket, bird or snakes! Then a loud rustle comes in. We all stopped. There in front of us, is a deer. We just went quiet watching the deer.
The snakes (two of them) throw our 3rd grader a little bit that after getting out of the woods, to make our loop, she doesn’t want to go back the trail. We got to convinced her going back by showing her the going back trail is shorter. Yeah, the entire family conquered the 2.8 mile hike.
I asked, “How’s that for our 1st day of school?”
Our 5th grader says, “Is there a trail that has air conditioning?”
Our 3rd grader says, “Can we have a normal second day of school?”
Our K4, simply needs to take a nap. Very badly.
Bonus: Junior Ranger Badge
They are up for their 5th Junior Ranger Badge. It came in handy as we try to use our senses during our hike. What do we see? What do we hear? What do we smell? What can we touch? All of these recorded into their Junior Ranger booklet.
They finished about 15 minutes before state park closes. So that we have to call a Ranger to swear them in. They got their badge and a bonus bandana as a gift.
The Learning Story 