It's getting to that time of year again where we have a slightly better chance of sunshine and I'd like to think that we are taking full advantage of that. Our garden is looking the best it has since we moved into our home and the bright warm weather and long light evenings have been putting a smile on all of our faces. The great thing about the weather being lovely is that we can take the home-schooling outdoors more, which for me, is what it's all about.
Last year we started Geocaching with the boys and the 4 of us had some seriously fun adventures. Many in lush weather like this but there were a few where we were out, hunting around woodland in the pouring rain and the weather didn't make it any less fun. We'd not been for quite some time but last week Opeie asked if we could go again. I had the perfect place in mind with Geocache sites scattered all over a huge piece of farmland and it meant that we could take the Micro scooters with us to get from cache to cache. Opeie named our day 'cowboy adventure day'.
Turns out you can't wear a cowboy hat while wearing a helmet, so we briefly discussed a collaboration with Micro scooters about cowboy hat shaped helmets for us both (we may have to pitch it to them at some point).
If you've not tried geocaching before it is a must. With thousands of hidden caches to find all over the country you can fit it in pretty much anywhere you go, using the geocache app which you can download to your phone. It's a great way to get the boys out and walking on a nice day and if you pick an area with lots of caches to find, the excitement of each one is a great distraction from the actual distance that you have walked (or in our case, scooted).
Hunting for hidden treasures is so exciting for the boys and some of the geocache sites really test your navigational skills and creative thought. You sometimes really have to look hard at a seemingly plain looking environment. We found this one inside the post of this road sign after removing the rubber cap, genius!
Some of the locations make us chuckle, this one was simply called 'cluck' and was located in a tree next to a chicken run. The list to sign, to say that we had found it was in a plastic cooked chicken. Full on entertainment in the sunshine.
One of the things I love the most about Geocaching is that we get to see places we would never think of going. Last week we found an old derelict mill in the middle of some fields and woodland. It's fascinating how many interesting places there are hiding in areas, not too far from home. We also get to see lots of lovely animals on our expedition.
We couldn't scoot everywhere so there was a fair bit of stashing our scooters in some long grass or chaining them to a tree while we went off adventuring. At this point in our family days out we would be completely lost without our Micro scooters with us. They've opened up th world to the boys, taking them off of their feet and getting them moving about even more productively.
Opeie's excitement is contagious and with each find, there is more motivation to get to the next. From a home schooling point of view, geocaching is obviously great for map reading and learning about direction but is also great for learning higher numbers and counting backwards. Most importantly though is the learning from experience and being able to fully enjoy and learn from our surroundings.
Opeie loves how little things are often left inside by the previous finder and he takes a bag of small items to trade, every time we go. This little outing bagged us a new hat for rose the cat, so Opeie was very happy.
This years Geocaching outings have also bagged us a new recruit and Opeie's friend Kiera has also been coming with us and has really been getting into the hunt. Its always great to have an extra pair of eyes too. While I was searching along the inner bank of a stream with one cache, close to getting soaked, Kiera found what we were looking for high up on top of the bank because she was being a little more creative with her search.
We're now looking forward to getting Kiera's parents involved too for a double family Geocache outing. There is so much adventure to be had.
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