Monday 24 November 2008

Home School Camp

We went away for our home school group camp this weekend, which was a wonderful finish to a crap week :)

The camp was at a caravan park on the beach at Brooms Head, about 2.5 - 3 hours south of here. We packed up the car on Friday morning and drove down with Princess and Queen.

Brooms Head is a beautiful camp site, we had spaces to set up right on the beach, overlooking a beautiful lagoon.

62 camp

It was pretty windy, but the weather stayed fine and sunny the whole time, which was lovely.

The experience totally concreted the idea of living in community for me. We were about ten families, and for the most part, the kids were all running around together, doing fun kid stuff, learning and having a fantastic time. They were totally free, and there was always enough adult eyes kept on them that I didn't have to worry about hovering over Littletree every minute.

The kids played a lot on the beach, exploring, collecting cool shells, rocks, seaweeds, sponges, urchins and starfish, building sandcastles and running around.

63 camp beach

We all had some nice swims in the lagoon, which was perfect, as it provided a nice safe area for the littlies to swim in without waves or deep water. There were loads of big pelicans that we got a pretty close look at as well.

65 camp beach

The kids also loved the steep grassy slope that rose behind the camping area. They spent ages rolling down the hill, and then sliding down on their boogie boards.

They also set up an elaborate roadworks game with toy witches hats and stop signs and stuff. It was great to see how the kids worked out all the rules of the game. They even played for a while at setting up a little roadblock on the driveway past our tents. The few drivers that came through were happy to play along :)

61 camp traffic

We did another weaving workshop, which was great, I made a little basket out of copper wire that Littletree propptly commandeered as her own.

70 camp weaving

Funnily, there was a playground at the camp site, but it went mostly ignored, the children shunning the swings and slides in favour of scrambling around the rocks and exploring the beach and playing in nature :)

We had a great weekend and I'm glad to be home and enjoying the sunshine.

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a lovely weekend was had by all. I know what you mean about a community, i'd love that too xXx

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  2. We love your boogie boarding vid! But we seem to have lost the link somewhere along the way, oops. My kids have been asking this week about how a boogie board works, so thanks and we will have to get back to youtube of course, shoulda thought that already!

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  3. Sounds great! Will have to suggest something like this to my new homeschool group :)

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  4. my kids love to watch that boogie boarding! they have also got their own point from your pictures, not to spend time in a tent but to live in a mobile home.
    we have spent some time watching youtube people on boogie boards and windsurfers since we watched your vid.

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  5. I loved this post... I have been patiently waiting for the time when I will be live in a community as well.

    Blessed Be!

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Thanks for your lovely words, witty banter and entertaining discussion :)