The Way We Learn

Last week we traveled to Half Moon Bay to visit Grandma Joan for a few days. Yippee thought I, we'll be near San Francisco and at the beach....so many learning opportunities...Alcatraz, museums, the Exporatorium; no end to my list of things we could do. But things didn't go exactly as I had hoped. Jeff wasn't as "into" the my great ideas as I was. It rained some and it was New Years and we really just wanted to be with the Grandparents as that's the most important thing and it had been too long since we had visited.

I needed to something that has taken me a L O N G time to learn to do...relax and let my ideas go. So I did

Grace, Ruthie, Sarah and Mary enjoying the surf.



We all went to the beach and of course it was beautiful and a great learning experience all on it's own (without lessons, books or even tide pools). We played tennis, mini-golf, pool and walked the nature trail. We cooked and cleaned and ate and talked with the Grands. We watched "The Yearling" for the umpteenth time (after all it's still sort of new to Pete and Joe) it's a family tradition.

A lovely dinner with Grandma Joan.


Walking with Dad.




Games in the courtyard.

On the last day of our visit Grandma and Grandpa treated us to outdoor dining at a seafood restaurant for lunch. We had clam chowder, crab cocktail...the works! It was delicious! After that we walked along a pier where all sorts of small ocean going vessels were docked. A man pointed the way to a boat named "Promise" which had just returned from crabbing. So we ventured down to the boat and bought five live crabs! Sarah declared that she wants to be a crab fisher woman someday.


Pete and Joe with dinner guests


You can guess what we studied next day when we got home...crabs. First we looked up cooking crabs on the internet. Then of course, we cooked them. After that we read all about crabs, sketched them in our Nature Journals and noted the classification. Later that evening we cracked, picked and finally enjoyed eating our crabs just dipped in melted butter.







These are Mary, Peter and Joe's nature journals. You can click on them to view larger.


God wanted to bless us and He did. We enjoyed being with Jeff's folks so much. The children were sweet and behaved quite well. The learning thing happened naturally by taking time, explaining things and answering questions. Even the lesson "plan" that I couldn't quite pull off came together beautifully when I let God lead. I'm so glad I gave up because His ways are always above our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours.


Science class around the dining room table


Extra thoughts of note:
1) The day after our crab boat visit the morning news reported that a local crab boat capsized in Half Moon Bay...that really got the children's attention. Thankfully the crew was rescued.
2) I thought of asking Jeff if we might buy some fresh seafood to take home but thought better of it so he got the full blessing of his generosity.
3) I really wanted to suggest getting some clam chowder at the pier but didn't. I'm always telling the children that a treat isn't a treat...if you ask for it.
4) I came home rested since we didn't have to "be anywhere" or "do anything" ☻

God is good and GREATLY to be praised! I think we'll look up some ocean passages and use them for copy work tomorrow. Oh, and certainly we'll write thank you letters to our generous grandparents with our very best penmanship and grammar.