Vacationing in Gearhart, Oregon & Blog Hop

May 15, 2013 by

Gearhart, Oregon

 

Last weekend we spent a few days with our friends in Gearhart, a lovely, quiet town three miles north of Seaside at the Oregon coast. Gearhart is located 10 miles from the northwest tip of Oregon and about 80 miles from Portland. View map of Oregon Coast.

What appealed to us is the quiet, slow-paced atmosphere of Gearhart. Once you entered city limits, there are no street lights. Wide streets made it a great place for biking. To learn an easy way to teach children to bike, read my post Teach Your Child to Ride a Bike.

biking in Gearhart, Oregon

With the unusually warm Mother’s  Day weekend, it made it a perfect time for a walk down to the unspoiled sandy Gearhart Beach which is situated right in town. Just bring some shovels and buckets and the kids will entertain themselves for hours. One thing Buddy, my big boy, discovered was jumping waves.  Standing in the water hand in hand with his friends and taking a big jump on the waves as it crashed in. He had the biggest smile of satisfaction! See picture below.

Gearhart Beach

  playing-by-the-sea in Gearhart, Oregon

I had fun shell hunting on the beach. Together with our friends we must have collected ten sand dollars. At low tide, some of us even found some live sand dollars, and yes, we did return them to the sea. I found this sand dollar poem and thought you might enjoy it too (see picture below). There’re other versions of the Legend of the Sand Dollar. If you’re interested, there’s also Legend of the Sand Dollar children’s book.

gearhart-sand-dollar

When night falls, we enjoyed a fun game of Two Truths and a Lie around this outdoor fire with marshmallows and yummy smores. We were told that bonfires on the beach is permitted.

gearhart-smores2

If you’re a golfer, Gearhart is home to Gearhart Gold Links, the oldest golf course in the northwest, beautiful and well kept. Other activities include tennis, clamming and flying kites. Visit City of Gearhart for more information. We definitely enjoyed ourselves in Gearhart. I hope you enjoyed all those fun pictures! Now on with our Thursday blog hop.

Welcome to Be Inspired By Others Thursday Blog Hop.
Now let’s link up in community.

If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to visit some great posts from bloggers around the web. Thank you to those of you who linked up with me last week. I loved reading all of your great posts.

Come inspire us by linking up your wonderful posts here so we all can be inspired. All family-friendly posts such as, marriage, motherhood, crafts, recipes, homeschooling, organization, and more are welcome. If you decide to join the fun by linking up with us, I request that you add Home Educator Mom’s button to your posts or site so others can join us as well. You can find the html code in the sidebar, or “save as” copy, and paste the button below on your blog.

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If you have a Giveaway, check out my big list of Sites to List Your Giveaways. I personally use this list myself so the links should work.

Hop on over here to see my list of Blog Hops / Link-up Parties to add your link and join others.



Filed Under: Mom's Corner, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: ,

Fall Nature Walk

October 15, 2012 by

Inspired by the children’ books Leaf Man and Leaf Jumpers, we went on our first fall nature walk this year. Excited, the kids gathered their beach buckets and we headed down our neighborhood streets in search of fall artifacts. They picked up twigs, cones of various sizes and leaves of different colors and shapes. It was just a fun time of observing signs of autumn. As we walked, we had conversations about fall. Buddy saw a tree with leaves that hung down low, and he asked me if it’s a willow tree. It was neat to see them put their book knowledge into real life experiences. Below are some pictures of our walk and projects that we made with our findings. We tried to glue our leaf animals together, but that didn’t work because the leaves were all dried and uneven, so I told the kids that we’ll have the nice pictures for memory and they were all fine with that.

Buddy’s bird

Chicco’s trying to make a butterfly.

Mei’s butterfly that Buddy made for her.

Buddy asked for pipe cleaners for his pine cone spider.

If you’re interested in some great fall books for children, read 10 Fall Books for Children.

What fall activities does your family enjoy? Please share in the comments.

Filed Under: Crafts, Fall, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: ,

Fruit Picking

September 25, 2012 by

One of the autumn family activities that we like to do is apple picking. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, now’s the time to enjoy a fun day at a local farm and pick some juicy apples, scrumptious peaches and pears.  Not to mention how much fun it will be for the kids.

We packed up our kids, some snacks, and drove to Mountain View Orchards for our annual fruit picking event.  Our homeschool group introduced us to this Hood River Fruit Loop farm that we have enjoyed visiting. We chose the Hood River area, even though the distance is further, for its breathtaking view of the Columbia Gorge and the spectacular sight of Mt. Hood. It’s just magnificent!

The orchard have some activities for the whole family.  On the weekends, they have free hay rides for the whole family, you can sample fresh squeezed apple juice, and various jams. Your family can also take a tour of the farm on your own and check out the sunflowers, corns, pumpkins (no U-Pick) and some animals.  Our three kiddos had a great time picking the fruits and simply just pulling their wagons around the farm.

 

We ended our day with a picnic right between the isles of apples trees. If you’re interested in the Mt. View Orchards, it runs through October 31 with daily hours from 9-5. Click here for their contact info. Plan ahead: call the farm before you go.

If you’re interested in checking out other farms/orchards. Click here for a map of the Hood River County Fruit Loop.

BTW… we didn’t get any reception for our GPS once we got into the Fruit Loop, so make sure you make a hard copy of your Google map.

Filed Under: Fall, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: , , ,

Kids’ Construction Zone

September 14, 2012 by

My kids love the outdoors, and what a better way to integrate learning in their outdoor activities. One fun summer activity that my kiddos enjoy is what we called, Kids’ Construction Zone. We have a small structure area with slide and two swing sets within this rectangular box filled with wood chips. This is our construction site.  To add to the fun, I bought some hats and dump trucks from a local thrift store. We’ve also collected some gardening tools over the years so this is a part of their construction set. (The best time to pick up some gardening gear is after spring when stores try to get rid of their merchandise.)

Prior to their play, we talked about what we see at a construction site: what the workers wear, signs they see, and colors.  As a result, the following pictures are the creativity and learning experience while they play.

Things we have in our Kids’ Construction Zone: (I’m sure you’ll come up with other fun items)

  1. Kid’s Gardening Gloves
  2. Dump Trucks of varies sizes
  3. Hard Hats
  4. Shovels
  5. Trowels
  6. Hoe
  7. Hand Rakes
  8. Buckets
  9. Old Vinyl Table Cloth (if your kids wanted to make a sign)

Here are my three workers ready to start their day!

Mei scooping with her hand-held shovel.

Digging and filling their dump trucks.

Mei hoeing.

This cool dump truck actually tilts when a knob is turned!

This dump truck is pretty good for riding too!

Day 2: Buddy, my big boy, wanted to make a sign. I provided him with an old vinyl picnic table cloth (so it’s waterproof) and now all the sibblings are helping.

We hung that sign.  “Kids at Work” sign is up and now it’s official!

Now the three kiddos record their fun in their journals.

Here’s Buddy’s journal entry for his time at the Kids’ Construction Zone. He was told to draw a picture and write about it. This is his effort in sounding out words. In the meantime, Chico and Mei were just drawing whatever came to mine like apples and bananas.

As an extension, your kids might like:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

For more  great ideas on outdoor activities, visit Flights of Whimsy.

And there you have, an outdoor activity that’s fun, inexpensive, and a great learning tool.  Do you have your own that you would like to share? Please comment.

Filed Under: Outdoor Activities Tagged With:

Kids’ Construction Zone

September 12, 2012 by

My kids love the outdoors, and what a better way to integrate learning in their outdoor activities. One fun summer activity that my kiddos enjoy is what we called, Kids’ Construction Zone. We have a small structure area with slide and two swing sets within this rectangular box filled with wood chips. This is our construction site.  To add to the fun, I bought some hats and dump trucks from a local thrift store. We’ve also collected some gardening tools over the years so this is a part of their construction set. (The best time to pick up some gardening gear is after spring when stores try to get rid of their merchandise.)

Prior to their play, we talked about what we see at a construction site: what the workers wear, signs they see, and colors.  As a result, the following pictures are the creativity and learning experience while they play.

Things we have in our Kids’ Construction Zone: (I’m sure you’ll come up with other fun items)

  1. Kid’s Gardening Gloves
  2. Dump Trucks of varies sizes
  3. Hard Hats
  4. Shovels
  5. Trowels
  6. Hoe
  7. Hand Rakes
  8. Buckets
  9. Old Vinyl Table Cloth (if your kids wanted to make a sign)

Here are my three workers ready to start their day!

Mei scooping with her hand-held shovel

Digging and filling their dump trucks.

Mei hoeing.

This cool dump truck actually tilts when a knob is turned.

This dump truck is pretty good for riding too!

Day 2: Buddy, my big boy, wanted to make a sign. I provided him with an old vinyl picnic table cloth (so it’s waterproof) and now all the sibblings are helping.

We hung that sign.  “Kids at Work” sign is up and now it’s official!

Now the three kiddos record their fun in their journals.

Here’s Buddy’s journal entry for his time at the Kids’ Construction Zone. He was told to draw a picture and write about it. This is his effort in sounding out words. In the meantime, Chico and Mei were just drawing whatever came to mine like apples and bananas.

As an extension, your kids might like:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

For more  great ideas on outdoor activities, visit Flights of Whimsy.

And there you have, an outdoor activity that’s fun, inexpensive, and a great learning tool.  Do you have your own that you would like to share? Please comment. 

Filed Under: Outdoor Activities Tagged With:
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