Playing in the Dirt!

We love to garden. We work hard in our backyard to grow food for our family to eat. Our front yard, however, gets neglected.  Our Homeowners Association prevents us from growing food in our front beds so it ends up that they just sort grow whatever the previous owners put in until that plant dies. In the bed on the smaller side of our front yard an azalea was hidden below some other plants. We transplanted it and it did well for a small while and then it died. We took it out thinking we'd put something else in and then it just became a dirt patch where the kids enjoyed doing their own "gardening."

I'm trying hard to take the kids outside at least once per day. They play so well together out of doors and plus it's good for them! There are so many science lessons to be taught simply by experiencing nature and so we use this exploration time to talk about those concepts. On September 12th the weather was beautiful. It wasn't hot, but it wasn't cold and the kids wanted to play in the dirt. After a few minutes of looking at Pinterest on my phone (I don't know how people ever homeschooled before Pinterest!) I noticed mister W putting dirt on sweet little man's exersaucer. Then I saw his face! Mister W had been putting the dirt down and then sweet little man had been EATING IT! Being the responsible parent that I am, I had to run inside and grab my camera before I cleaned him up.

 

We put an end to feeding dirt to the baby, but that didn't stop the big kids from getting covered. At some point the game became covering their exposed skin with dirt. They had a lovely time and thank goodness it was a bath night!