One thing I adore most about children is their innate ability to see the beauty in the world around them. And our adventures in the desert space near our apartment remind me of that admirable quality every time we go on one.
While I often suggest going on a ‘desert adventure’ as a way to get out of the house {and stay sane} when we’re vehicle-less, Gracen is always thrilled with the suggestion and often shouts, ‘Yay! We’re going on a treasure hunt!’ before running off to retrieve a bag to house her findings. She returns, pops her shoes on her feet and cheers, ‘Let’s go!’ anxious to see what sort of beautiful things she might find today.
Truthfully, in the stereotypical sense, our neighbourhood is far from beautiful. It’s filled with piles of trash, mounds of sand are scattered throughout, dumped building supplies are plentiful, and plastic bags float around at your feet. But Gracen? She sees mountains to climb, things to investigate, and treasures waiting to be discovered. If only we could all be so optimistic.
Well I’m up for trying. Here are the bits of beauty we discovered in Mahboula today…
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Love your little safari adventure, and I would like share something I did with my older grandchildren a few years back (quite a few!). I used to take them on “field trips” every week during summer vacation, and then we would gather bits and pieces of nature, bring them home and draw or tape things in a Nature Journal. I would also draw and write about our adventures, and at the end of the summer gave them photocopies of all our journal pages. They are graduated from high school and college now, but still tell me how much they treasured our field trips in the summer.
Another thing I have done with them is to make “Nature walk Candles” where we gathered our bits and pieces of moss, dried mushrooms, sticks, pine cones, lichen etcetera and hot glued them around the base of a short glass turned upside down, topped with a nice chunky beeswax candle. Their mom still treasures their nature art.
Now I have another set of grandchildren age 3 and 1, and I am shamelessly stealing ideas from your blog to keep them entertained! Love all your postings, and the links to other creative sites. Tell Miss G that we are giving her pompom catapult a try next week! Thanks again,