lessons learned on a homeschool camping trip

September 29, 2008 in homeschooling, out and about | 3 comments

Even cheese-grating can be fun, when you do it with friends.

  • even cheese-grating can be fun, when you do it with friends.
  • a six-year-old can subsist on little more than quesadillas and marshmallows for three days.
  • when a camping coordinator reads the “camping guidelines” aloud during dinner, including the guideline about adults modeling responsible alcohol use, she is bound to have a bottle of beer in her hand.
  • if you tell a group of five to eight-year-olds that they can “fight” with kindling sticks only if they do so in slow motion, they may surprise you by following your instructions.
  • if you tell your twelve-year-old that she must sleep in your family tent, rather than in a tent full of other twelve and thirteen-year-olds, there will be some wrath to deal with at bedtime.
  • you can knit complicated lace patterns while supervising your six-year-old in the Santa Cruz surf.
  • older teens who have spent previous camping trips hiding out in the farthest reaches of campsites may suddenly spend stretches of time alongside the adults, seeming to enjoy themselves.
  • if you put out an expensive hunk of Humboldt Fog truffle-laced goat cheese for your co-chefs to enjoy, an eight-year-old with a sophisticated palate will snarf half the thing down before you notice what is happening.
  • on the other hand, if you leave out a bag of grated jack while making an aforementioned quesadilla, a far-less-sophisticated adult may approach, stick his dirty camping hands into your cheese and do some snarfing of his own.
  • homeschooling mothers outfitted with headlamps will continue knitting long past dark.
  • homeschooling fathers outfitted with guitars and a trumpet, plus one talented 17-year-old with a mandolin, can lead one heck of a hootenanny.
  • if a park ranger approaches on Thursday night to complain about the noise generated by a group of adults talking quietly around a campfire, he will be nowhere to be found on Saturday night during said hootenanny, even considering said trumpet.
  • despite what naysayers may say, eighteen hearts of romaine does not make too much caesar salad for sixty-one hungry campers.
  • you can make a pretty tasty lasagna with a cast iron dutch oven and a bag of briquettes.
  • despite the all the shopping and packing beforehand, and the unpacking and laundering after, the trip will be worth it. And then some.
we *heart* camping

we *heart* camping

  1. stefaneener’s avatar

    stefaneener on September 29, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    It was really fun.

    Every time, I think, “It can’t get better,” and then it does. Maybe it’s moving out of the toddler years. . .

    I’m still doing laundry.

  2. Lin Taylor’s avatar

    Lin Taylor on November 18, 2008 at 11:26 am

    This sounds great. Our Small co-op is planning a camping trip in June 2009.

  3. patricia’s avatar

    patricia on November 18, 2008 at 12:27 pm

    Thanks for stopping by my blog, Lin!

    Homeschooling camping trips are the best. Our group has gone on two per year for several years now. I know those trips will be among my kids’ favorite memories of homeschooling.