Homeschoolers and 80 degree weather

Today was a terrific day!  Jen and I took a group of 7 kids that ranged from 2 years old to 7 years old. This group was ambitious and curious.  They wanted to know all the plants and why certain dirt was red.  They wanted to know why we have so many rocks in the forest and why we burn prairie.  They wanted to capture a snake and a frog and they wanted to pick every plant they could.  This group was so wonderful that we hardly had them play activities because we just wanted to teach them about the things they were most curious about.  We did play the scavenger hunt game which helped them find things like a toad and animal tracks that they really wanted to see.  Two things were amazing about this group; their determination to walk to Bear lake and their skills on building nests.  When I told them that they were going to build a nest, they got super excited.  I took four sticks and made an outline to show them what I mean by building a nest, and then they took that and ran with it.  They built it so it was hollow in the middle, and then put a roof on top of it.  They built a bridge so that the birds would have a clear path way to get to the nest, and they add things like mud and grass because of certain birds that do that.  This was a great lead in to talking about the different kinds of nests, and how eagles come back to their same nest every year.
Over all I loved today, and it made me realize how much I love student lead activities and just facilitating their learning.  I hope to take that mindset and continue to use that in a traditional classroom as much as I can.