Spring Hike

Add caption

The weather turned absolutely gorgeous last week, and I was anxiously eyeing the monument for a little exercise with my kiddos. Finally, after a full week of school and some housecleaning, I felt we could head up the hill for a hike. We chose the self-guided nature trail, and the kids learned to identify juniper, pinion pine, sage brush, yucca, and green ephedra. We also saw a rabbit's burrow and some sandstone strata. S got fussy, so we had to cut our walk short, but I promised we would return another day.
I loved that we turned our outing into another learning experience. There is a wealth of information waiting to be discovered and absorbed into eager minds. It's fun when those minds belong to my children.

Jellybean Jars

I saw this link online about a Lent activity for kids using jelly beans and jars. Each color represents something different, and they have an opportunity to earn one of each color each day. White represents the grace of God, and it cannot be earned. On Easter they will find the remainder of their jars filled with white jelly beans.

I thought this would be a great activity to do with my kids over the next few weeks, so yesterday, I bought a couple of bags of jellybeans and some small canning jars. We sorted the jellybeans by color, and the kids were very curious as to how they could earn jellybeans for their own jars. Today, they went out of their way to model the appropriate behavior for each color, earning jellybeans for forgiveness, kindness, sacrifice, and more.

Although we started this craft a tad late in the season, I am looking forward to the discussions and behavior this activity will inspire.