Author: Ann

Blessed to homeschool in rural east Texas. Two graduated, one to go!

Geocaching – Part 2 ~ Guest Post

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Vicky Duran is a homeschooling mother from near Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has two children, ages 11 and 4, and is also known to educate other children through homeschooling at her house. Vicky and her family discovered geocaching about a year ago and have a great time exploring parts of their area they had never explored before.  This is part 2 of a 3 part series where Vicky shares about geocaching as an educational family activity.

Read part one here

What is geocaching.com?

The internet site “geocaching.com” is the clearinghouse of sorts for the sport of geocaching. It is where you go to find maps and coordinates of hidden caches. You will have to create a (free) basic account complete with an account name and password. An account name can be a made-up name, which most of them are, or a combination of initials. Some even use their amateur radio call signs. Once your account is created, you can search the website for geocaches near you area. Once you find ones you might be interested in you can check the difficulty of the cache. Using a star system, a rating of Difficulty 1, and Terrain 1 means that it is an extremely easy and probably wheelchair accessible cache. On the other hand, a Difficulty of 5 and a Terrain of 5 means you had better be an expert to be able to fish those caches out. There is also a size rating that will tell you an approximate size of cache you are looking for. The nice thing about the more than 1 million, 92-thousand caches hidden around the world is that there is something out there for everyone.

This is sounding interesting, but my kids… I don’t want them to find something that is inappropriate.

I hear you there! To participate with www.geocaching.com, there are guidelines one must agree to. One of them is that there is to be NO inappropriate material left in the caches. This activity is stressed as a family friendly game and everyone works hard to keep it safe and fun for kids. Other guidelines include asking permission before crossing private property, cache in, trash out (which means pick up trash you see as you are on your adventure)., and if you take an item from a cache, be sure to leave something of equal or greater value.

Ok, this sounds good. But what educational value is there in this?

There is a lot! First of all the coordinates give you a great geography lesson in latitude, longitude, degrees, minutes and seconds (and I’m not talking about time, either.)

A deer photographed while on a geocaching adventure.

Also, many cache hiders hide caches in places they want people to come to; there’s something to see, discover or learn about. Plus, in the year we’ve been caching, we have seen birds, plants, deer and other animals that we would research about when we returned home. You can create your own treasure hunt. For example, to help my boys get ready for a history test, I hid a bunch of questions around my place, noted the coordinates and gave them to the boys. They had to find the questions, answer them and find the next as quickly as possible. They had great fun with that. You can also follow a travel bug as it moves from cache to cache.

Is something you would do on Sabbath?

Really, that is a personal and family choice, so I really don’t want to make the choice for you. However, for MY family we find it to be a very appropriate Sabbath activity.

Travel Bug?! Ugh, what’s that?

Don’t worry, it’s not some creepy crawly thing that bites you. A travel bug is really only a special military-like dog tag with a unique serial number that can be activated through www.geocaching.com. You attach the dog tag to a host (perhaps a Hot Wheels Car or a small stuffed animal, etc.) attach a sturdy card with a goal for the travel bug (if you want to give it a goal), list the travel bug on your geocaching.com account and release it into a cache.

A teddy bear travel bug.

As people pick it up, move from place to place and log the movement, you are notified of your travel bug’s progress through emails.

Interesting. Have you sent out travel bugs?

Yes, we have. We sent out bugs for each of the kids with a goal to make it to a cache near their grandparents’ house in Washington State. It took about six months for one to make it, the other one is currently listed as “unknown location.” The one that made it reached Washington via Montana, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada before finally ending up at its goal. It even visited a cache inside the Mall of America! The other travel bug, before it went missing was at the Twins baseball game last fall when they played a one game play-off game that went 15 innings. It was a big story here, and our travel bug was at the game. We even received a picture of it inside the Metrodome! We currently have a third travel bug out that has already visited Mexico.

Tomorrow – Hiding a cache


Geocaching- Part 1 ~ Guest Post

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Vicky Duran is a homeschooling mother from near Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has two children, ages 11 and 4, and is also known to educate other children through homeschooling at her house. Vicky and her family discovered geocaching about a year ago and have a great time exploring parts of their area they had never explored before.  This week we will feature a 3-part series where Vicky shares about geocaching as an educational family activity.


Hey there, I keep hearing this word “Geocaching,” but I don’t know what it is, can you tell me?

Geocaching is word that came into existence nine or ten years ago when the military opened up the Global Positioning Satellite system for public/commercial use. Geo comes from “Of the Earth,” and “Caching” means to hide or store away. So we have “to hide away on the earth.” Geocaching started when GPS enthusiast Dave Ulmer hid a navigational target in the woods, and posted the coordinates on a GPS users group online. The idea was simple: Hide a container out in the woods and note the coordinates with a GPS unit. Someone with a GPS unit copied his coordinates down, and then searched for his hidden cache using only his GPS unit. Ulmer’s idea was a hit, and geocaching was born.

Tell me more.

Geocaching is a family-friendly activity with two parts – hiding caches and finding them. Let me explain. With the increasing popularity of GPS units, in particular camping and trail devices, it is easy to hide a container containing small trinkets and a logbook somewhere in the world – generally close to where you live.

It sounds like this might be a pretty expensive activity – you’re talking GPS units and “hiding containers.” How much is all this going to cost?

Ready to go, with GPS unit in hand!

Well, as with any activity, there is some cost to it, but getting started is not as much as you may think. You do need a GPS unit, of course; a kid-oriented Geomate Jr. runs about $70. For something more programmable, a Garmin ETrex is about $99. The price of a unit can go up from there. As far as containers go, you can use an empty peanut butter container or even an empty 35mm film canister. Some people get creative and use empty fire extinguishers, or even a cheap water bottle inside a hollowed-out stump. For fun, some people buy “trick” containers such as fake rocks or even fake outdoor faucets.

Inside the container, would be at minimum a log book of some kind. Larger containers would hold trinkets for trade – often little toys from party favors, from kids’ meals at fast food joints, or things you would find at a dollar store.

That doesn’t sound too bad. But what do you with all of that stuff?

First of all, let’s talk about finding a cache since that is the way many people begin. Let me share what our family did. Like you, I had heard the word “geocaching” kicked around in various conversations and once in the while, the news. My husband and I finally decided to stop at one of our state parks on the way home from a camping trip. There, we checked out a unit and went on our very first geocaching adventure. It was a multi-cache, meaning we had several stops to go to (like a treasure hunt) before we finally found the real cache. Managing the GPS unit was simple as we programmed in the various coordinates….

Wait, that is the second time I have heard coordinates from you. Can you explain that?

Sure, you know about lines of latitude and lines of longitude. That is what I am talking about. A GPS coordinate is a series of numbers that indicate your latitude and longitude down to the minutes and seconds. Dave Ulmer’s first cache was hidden at N 45° 17.460 W 122° 24.800.

I understand. Go on…

Anyway, we finally found the cache located tucked away in a washed up log on a beach at our state park. The cache was an old military ammo box which is very popular in caching. Inside were trinkets of all sorts, most of which were of very little value. There was also a log to sign as proof that we really did find it. Once we signed the log and made a trinket trade, we made sure to rehide the cache exactly as we found it. That was our first experience.

There was one more step. When we got home, we logged our find at www.geocaching.com.

Tomorrow – Hidden caches and Travel bugs

June Brings…

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June brings tulips, lilies, roses,

Fills the children’s hands with posies *

It’s June! Where does the time go? Here are some June-themed activities to take you into summer.

~Have you ever eaten kohlrabi or jicama? Now’s a great time to have a tasting party and try a  few new fruits or vegetables to celebrate National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month.

~This month, ask your children to draw maps of your home and label the best exits in case of emergency. Then have them organize and execute a family fire drill in recognition of National Safety Month.

~What do you know about  the proper way to display our flag? Complete a one-day mini unit on Flag Day, June 14th.

~Spend some time enjoying June’s flower, the rose. What a sweet smelling nature study!

~June 27th is Helen Keller’s birthday. Find a few good biographies and picture books at the library and learn some facts about this amazing woman to share with the rest of your family.

*taken from Sara Coleridge’s poem , The Garden Year

Motivation Monday

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The Book of Nature

To the little child, not yet capable of learning from the printed page or of being introduced to the routine of the schoolroom, nature presents an unfailing source of instruction and delight.  The heart not yet hardened by contact with evil is quick to recognize the Presence that pervades all created things.  The ear as yet undulled by the world’s clamor is attentive to the Voice that speaks through nature’s utterances.  And for those of older years, needing continually its silent reminders of the spiritual and eternal, nature’s teachings will be no less a source of pleasure and of instruction.

Child Guidance, 45

The Merry Month of May

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The month of May is quickly flying by, but there is still time to include several of these May-themed activities to your homeschool program:

~Write a handwritten letter of encouragement to a soldier for National Military Appreciation Month

~Research  the history of the Memorial Day holiday.

~Focus some nature study time on May’s flower- Lily of the Valley

~Complete the President’s Challenge for National Physical Fitness Month

~Organize a family spelling bee in recognition of the upcoming National Spelling Bee

Enjoy!

 

Read to Me!

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I’d like to share one of the best and most important learning strategies that every family can apply to their homeschool program today. It takes up only a tiny portion of the day but has lasting and profound effects on the entire household. It is fun for all ages and best of all it’s free! What could this amazing learning strategy be? Simple. Reading aloud.

Reading is such a fundamentally important skill. It is the foundation for a strong education. One of the best ways to create a firm foundation for the learners in your home is to start reading to them from the very beginning.

For the very young child, being read aloud to sends a multitude of important messages. The time spent with the reading parent is a vitally important bonding time. The young child gets the message that the act of reading is important, fun, and desirable. Even though the child may not begin to read himself for several years, the underlying knowledge needed for reading success is being developed.

As a child enters his emerging reader years, the act of being read to still maintains a place of importance. Motivation becomes a key factor in reading success and being read aloud to keeps that motivation alive. It shows that reading is important and is a skill valued by the family. While the emerging reader listens, he takes note of the sounds of words, how punctuation is used, and begins to develop a personal vocabulary.

One might think that reading to an older child is not a valuable exercise, but that is far from the truth. Reading aloud may motivate a reluctant reader to try material previously thought too difficult. Reading aloud to older readers also stimulates fluency and vocabulary growth. In addition, taking the time to discuss the reading material is excellent preparation for higher-level critical thinking and writing.

It is so simple! Setting aside a 10-20 minute block of time each day for reading aloud will benefit your family at all levels of learning. What a wonderfully productive way to spend quality time together!

 

 

Originally posted on May 19, 2010

Motivation Monday

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Allow (children) to help you in every way they can, and show them that you appreciate their help. Let them feel that they are a part of the family firm. Teach them to use their minds as much as possible, so to plan their work that they may do it quickly and thoroughly. Teach them to be prompt and energetic in their work, to economize time so that no minutes may be lost in their allotted hours of work.

CG126

 

Originally posted May 17, 2010