Homeschool, take one!

Today is Theo's first day homeschooling! It was a busy morning.

Willem will continue to attend Kingwood Preschool this year, and probably into next year, as well. That way, I have three mornings a week at home with Theo to dig into a bit of reading, writing and math. I am looking forward to that! However, until after Thanksgiving we are not doing much "real" schoolwork. I want to give Theo a chance to relax, play and readjust to being home before doing anything very structured.

So this morning, after dropping Eric at work and Willem at school, Theo and I headed to Mint Springs. Some of you who have visited us here in Crozet have been there; it is a lovely county park with two lakes, a great playground, and lots of mountain trails to climb and explore. We have had TONS of rain lately, so there were many mucky spots, but that is OK; I love mud and mess personally and always have (long as it is not tracked through my house!).

Theo and I started out running and went up the Fire Trail, which winds its way around the lake and then up into the mountains. He said his legs were tired as we headed up the hill, but I encouraged him to push on and get stronger (he likes the idea of getting stronger and it usually provides good motivation). It is a warm, beautiful day today, and there are still some really colorful leaves to be seen on the ground and in the trees. Mint Spring is one of my favorite places in the world; the mountains form a bowl around it and it feels very remote. In the morning there are usually only a few fishermen and dog walkers sprinkled around sparsely, which makes it solitary and still. I am so grateful to live just down the road from such a place.

All along the way we stopped to observe rocks, creeks, leaves, trees, fungi, plants and whatever else was there. Pretty quickly we stumbled upon a stream flowing fast down the mountain; I have never seen it there before, so it must be new from the heavy rains. We stopped, knelt down and played with it, doing experiments to try and stop the water with leaves and rocks. Listening, we heard how the sound of the water lessened when we dammed up one part of the stream. There were rocks with complex colors and patterns hidden in it, and we played sink or float with the rocks. We talked about how gravity is the reason the water flows down, and both felt some awe at that.

Theo was transfixed by all the things we discovered along our way. Decomposition ended up being a big topic for us, as we talked about how leaves break down back into dirt eventually. We discussed natural matter and synthetic matter and how it takes much longer for synthetic materials to break down. He wanted to know if water decomposes and we talked about how water changes form, evaporating, freezing and so on.

As we headed back toward our car and down the trail, we came upon a huge expanse of mud. It was thick and deep and there were NO dry areas along the sides to walk across. So we just plunged through. Both of our shoes got totally mud-soaked, and Theo was not too happy with that wet-feet feeling by the time we had gotten across. He stayed calm, though, and I told him how I have always liked getting messy. Once we got back to the car he stripped off his socks and shoes (too bad I have no laundry detergent in the house right now - our shoes will have to be wait to be washed!).

I went to volunteer at Willem's school's Thanksgiving Feast after that, so Theo went across the street with to Eric's work for an hour and a half while I helped set up, etc. He listened to the Jungle Book, ate snacks and drew on the whiteboard (all barefoot!).

All in all, a good morning.

P.S: Why is the blog named Blue Ridge Laurels? Simple: we live at the bottom of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and my name means "laurel-crowned" or "crowned in victory". Since the mountains are my favorite thing about Crozet/Charlottesville, and I am the author of this blog, it seemed a fitting-enough name for now!