Nature. Fresh
air. The smell of acorns and dried
leaves. These things were calling to my soul—as they always do when I’ve been
away too long. Being in a spiritual funk for a week or so now, I felt my girls
and I needed to do something a little different
to mix it up a bit. Some serious schooling, cleaning, preparing for a house
appraisal, and just being plain tired (a habitual state for me) had us caged up
in the house for a while like gerbils. We needed to break out and get
into the great outdoors.
Glamping, heard of it? It’s the idea of Glamour Camping—camping with style. It's a MaryJane Farmgirl term.
Well my girls and I decide we would do our own variety of camping—“scamping”
(school +camping). We would school
outdoors. So we loaded up our schoolbooks, packed snacks, water
bottles, a lunch and some of the other comfort items we felt we might need for
an extended stay outside and away from the house, and drove up the road to a
nearby park. Granted this park was only minutes from my house. However, for our first
test run in scamping it was ideal just in case, God fobid, things
should go awry---li.e. tantrums started flaring or we should have forgotten some
vital item like diapers or baby wipes! We found a lodge towards the back
of the park that was vacant. It had its own small playground, perfect for
allowing the little ones to play while still allowing me to be close enough
that I could work with my older girls.
We set up shop, preparing our food station and pulling out
our school work.
I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out. You never do
with 5 kids! Even the best made plans with the sincerest of intentions can be
turned upside down when dealing with fickle, little people.
It was phenomenal!
It was a special
experience that made memories for my girls. Anna and Cailin were tickled pink
with the idea that they were doing their learning outside at the park. All I
kept hearing from them was, “This is the best school day ever!!” We had relay
races on the playground. We enjoyed our little picnic basket lunch. Watching
the leaves "rain" down from the trees, we decided, was heavenly.
This is an experience
we will definitely be repeating. We have ideas for perfecting our scamping
skills--like making a "Packing List" of all the items one would need
for a day of scamping so as not to forget anything and make these outings
easier to prepare for. Perhaps, keep some handy "extra" educational
tools and camping items in the car in a Scamping Emergency Supply Kit (i.e. an extra supply of pencils, bottles of
water, a diaper or two, etc...). Our scamping day held out a beautiful
temperature for us but with the weather on the brink of turning uncomfortably
cold we decided our scamping season might be cut short--we needed to fit in as
many as we could while we could! Before our season is through our goal is to scamp on Sky Line
Drive. We have a season pass and it is only a short distance from where we
live. Our dream is to take our scamping supplies and hit up one of the numerous
yet gorgeous picnic posts along the route. How awesome would that be?
