Mid-Summer Hello!

With summer being half over I wanted to take a moment to pop in on my blog and give you all a little update to what our family has been up to so far. As you might of noticed we have taken a break from our conventional lesson plans to fill our days with nature and learning through playing (because at this age I believe a good portion of learning is through play). And this summer has been nothing short of family fun! As a family of Oregon we are truly blessed to have so many great options for finding family activities to fill our summer. These are just a few of our favorites this year:

We have been taking to hiking as a family on some of the easier trails here in Oregon and letting our preschooler lead us through the paths, this is something we all enjoy as a family. Along with our frequent hikes we have started camping more frequently this summer (tent camping that is) this is something that surprisingly our whole family really enjoys together. I love it because we are away from all electronics, our kids sleep better in a tent than they do in our own home, and our kids love it because they can fully immerse in the dirt and fun of the outdoors.

Obviously no summer would be complete without water play, we have been doing swim lessons all summer long as part of our summer routine. We are really fortunate to live close to an aquatic center that both our toddlers absolutely adore, they have an amazing outdoor water play area and have a time specifically for families with toddlers. We have also discovered some of the amazing parks in Oregon that offer splash pads and water play for free. Seriously, if you haven't come across these yet then you are really missing out!

Summer in Oregon means one thing to our family and that's local farmers markets, they have the best produce finds (aside from our families gardens). While farmers markets aren't something new to us, we have recently discovered the joys of berry picking thanks to a few friends. Seriously, if you have toddlers this is a great activity for them! They get to run around freely, pick berries if they like (maybe even sneak a few for themselves) while you get to take home a serious haul of delicious berries. It's a win, win! And in our family we are all about teaching our children to be self sustainable, food is something that we nurture to grow and harvest. Another great discovery of this summer was Awana summer day camp that was offered through our church. This was such a saving grace for our preschooler! He got to spend his days with other children his age, learn about the many wonderful messages from God and really flourish in a new learning environment. Obviously a good chunk of our time was spent discovering new parks for our toddlers throughout Oregon.

No summer in Oregon is complete without traveling to the coast. There is nothing quite like sand castles, ocean waves, and salty air. This year we spent a good amount of our time on the coast exploring different towns along the way.

 

We hope your summers were as colorful as ours was! We look forward to hearing from all of you in September and cannot wait to kick off this homeschool year with all of you! Thank you for popping in and we will see you again soon!