Few’s Ford on the Eno River

Yesterday was one of our last co-ops of the school year, and boy was it great!!  It was so much fun for the children (and the moms), and the lessons were done so brilliantly, I don’t think even the oldest kids thought of it as “school.”  Still, even I was learning about our waterways as the children played on a sandbar in the Eno River.

Come on, Mom!  Let’s get to the river!

I immediately spotted a butterfly sitting on what was, as my husband explained to me, raccoon scat, or droppings, or whatever you like to call it.  Michaela could not understand why I wanted so many pictures of this, but it’s the butterfly I’m looking at!  Still, all in all, very educational, no matter what you are looking at!

The children in the co-op begin to gather around one of their teachers for the day and listen to her tell them about what to be careful of — copperheads, leeches, but not to panic.  She explained what to do in case of each.  Don’t pick up or antagonize snakes, don’t panic if a leech gets on you, we’ll get it off of you the right way, etc.  It was a good reminder for all the children as we head into summer.

Next, the children sat down on quilts and listened to the story for this co-op:   The Raft by Jim LaMarche, a beautiful, beautiful story about a young boy who spends the summer with his grandmother, an artist who lives on a river in the woods.  At first he thinks he’ll be bored, but nothing could be less true!  He is in love with that place by the time he leaves!

How clever of our teachers to take us to Few’s Ford for this co-op!

The first half of the class was about the Eno River, where the river starts, what other rivers and/or lakes it feeds into and gets fed by, and thus by what route it ends up flowing into the sea.  Instead of making this a technical talk that no one would remember, our teachers had prepared tags, one for each child, representing places along the Eno River or whatever other waterway  the Eno flowed into.

Look at all the places!

The students listened as they were each told about their locations, including highlights about elevation, tributaries, landmarks, etc.  They were each to “build” their location on the sandbar, and as they dug out the river running through their location, it would connect with the person on either sie of them.  Finally, the point was to have a flowing river from start to finish.

These boys build Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro.

Michaela was all the way out at Pamlico Sound.

Some small areas had to be dammed up as the children started testing water flow.  It’s some kind of work to build a river!

The sand held the water well, so the water is headed toward the sea. 

Tributaries.  I loved watching the children really put their minds and all of their effort into this!

It’s working!

Cape Hatteras.  Isn’t she lovely?

Now nearly everyone is done, the system is complete and we are pouring water in!  It worked so well.  The water flowed from Hillsborough to the Outer Banks!

After a lunch break — a picnic with peanut butter and honey sandwiches, apples and lemonade, we started the second half of the co-op, which was a scavenger hunt for creatures and plants!  I was in plant heaven out there!  I think not one child seriously hunted for plants.  They all chose creatures!  But I could not blame them, for the creatures were many and varied, and very interesting!

Fresh water mussels.

There were displays set up all over the place for creature visitation so all could get a look, then they were gently released back into their natural homes.

Crayfish.  Big!  With big claws!

A fishing spider.

After all the “school work” the kids just played in the river.  Michaela claimed that she “fell in” but I think falling can be on purpose sometimes.

I think this will go down as one of the best co-ops in FIAR history. 

You know what I did during all of this, right?  I visited with little creatures and tried to identify plants.

It’s a work day for me.  The day is more than half over, but still a ways to go.  Just using a break to finish up this post.