Seven Ways to Find Playscapes Near You (And 10 Pre-Tested in Lane County!)



Wonders of Nature (A Little Golden Book)

by Jane Werner Watson, Eloise Wilkin

This is our life right now: Wonders of Nature.  (If you get a chance to pick up a copy of this book, Wonders of Nature, do!  So sweet and poetic!)  Every morning, the littles wake up and before I can finish picking up their breakfasts, they’re begging to get their shoes on (or not) and escape to the great outdoors.  This week we’ve been studying beetles and caterpillars, flattening mole hills, picking apples, and splashing in rivers.  I say that in multiple because we’ve been exploring fair number of parks since we’ve been here and an even higher proportion this past week while Josh was at Peterson University in Oakland.  Parks seem to distract kids from missing their dad the best, they meet friends, and sleep great that night!

Willamalane

It’s always hard finding where to go to play in a new town.  So far I’ve been very impressed with the parks in the Eugene area, so I wanted to share our local experiences with others in the area who might be curious, as well as general ways you can look for play areas in any town. 

Armitage

How to discover new play areas near you:

1.       Drive Bys:  You know, to be quite honest, we’ve found the majority of parks by mistake.  Nothing beats exploring on your own, getting a little lost, finding some hidden gems and figuring out a new area.  My first memorized route in this town of crazy roads and traffic was to the grocery store (priorities, right?) and it was from there that I spied at least three of the parks we’ve visited!  Look for the brown rectangle park signs and yellow diamond playground signs.  In fact, even the kiddos recognize and seem to be on constant look out for these ones.

More info about recreational signs here

2.       Google (or other search engine) maps: Type in “playground” on the map and watch those red dots pop up.  Or “park” if you’re not particular about it having a play structure and swings.  A little tricky knowing just what you’re getting into, but it will often link to the parks web page and you can choose what area you want.  If you don’t see many, try zooming in and the smaller ones will appear.  Sorry if this is too elementary, but I myself am fairly technologically challenged, so it took me a little while to figure this out!  Maybe I can save someone else with a similar condition a minute or two! =)

Amazon

3.       County Parks home page. Search for (your county) county parks.  The Lane County Parks page  has links to a variety of different parks as well as regulations and passes.  They also have a page listing all the parks in Lane County with information on the amenities provided, though the presence of playgrounds is not always mentioned.

4.       State Parks: Search for (your state) State Parks to find their web page.  Oregon’s is definitely geared more toward camping and outdoor adventures rather than playgrounds.  And of course it covers the whole state, so you have to narrow your search.  But if that’s what you’re looking for, this can also be a great tool. 

Dorris

5.       Kaboom:  Have you ever heard of Kaboom.org ?  You just type in your town and it pops up a map and list of play areas near you, both indoor and outdoor.  And you can add in the ones not yet listed!  Pretty convenient.  I’m going to have to play with this one some more.   

6.       School rules:  Did you know public school playgrounds are available to the public for play during non-school hours?  We visited these all the time growing up and got to discover many fun places we would have never seen otherwise!

Hendricks

7.       Word-of-mouth:  Do you know anyone in the area?  Especially if they have similar interests they are probably your best bet for directing you to the spots you’ll really enjoy.  Or, if you can find one park, ask others you come in contact with where else they like to go.  In my experience, people are usually more than willing to share their knowledge!

Mt. Pisgah

Just prepping this page I found so many more parks I want to check out!  I hope you can benefit from it, too!  Play is so necessary for everyone old and young alike and promotes physical and mental health.  Sometimes just knowing where to go can be half the battle.  Especially for homeschoolers or those with young children who may not have access to the play structures on a regular basis.  And you can use a lot of these searches as you travel, too!  Just remember to check local park regulations and fees; they’re usually posted on site.

Amazon

My kids are totally into playgrounds right now, so those are always at the top of their lists!  But for those locals (or newly locals) reading this, I wanted to share a couple of our favorite spots so far:

1.       Discovery Village in Skinner Butte Park: Awesome play structures and water play!  Pretty busy and open with tons to do.

Discovery Village

2.       Fairmount City Park: Smallish park tucked behind the university that also has water play.  Very peaceful secluded feel to this park.

Fairmount

3.       Amazon Park: Lots of fun structures that seemed to enthrall a wide range of ages.  Outdoor pool in the summer and miles of paths.

Amazon

4.       Willamalane Park: On our way to the grocery store! =)  Lots of play structures, skate park, and apparently there’s an indoor swim facility we have yet to discover.

Willamalane

5.       Hendricks Park: Although it does have a few swings, we appreciate this heavily wooded area best for its peaceful walking paths.

Hendricks

6.       Dorris Ranch: more info on this one in my last post, but this park has miles of paths, mostly through century-old hazelnut groves.  They also feature a living history village.  Although open to educational groups by reservation, we visited a community day last Friday and found it very interesting!

Dorris

7.       Petersen Barn: this was the first park we visited (found word-of-mouth) and loved the sandy playground and open space.  Turns out, our new church meets in the community center here!

Petersen Barn

8.       Dorena Lake: nice swim area and wooded picnic area on this lovely lake in the hills.  A little bit of a drive from Eugene.

9.       Lowell park and Dexter Lake Park: equipment to climb on and a great swimming area.  The day we went here it was almost 100 degrees!  The cool lake was so pleasant!  Again, about a half hour drive.

Dexter Lake

10.     Armitage Park: paved paths that wind around by the river, gravel bars and large fields with picnic areas.

Armitage paths passing under bridges

Where is your favorite place to go outside and play?  Do you have one great spot that you keep going back to, or do you like to discover new place each time you go out?  I hope you have a great week and happy exploring!

The Long, Long Hike: Scavenger Printables!

Have you ever been on a hike and realized it was taking WAY longer than you thought it would?  I mean, sometimes it doesn’t really matter, like when it’s just you and the dog and you don’t have anywhere to be.  I really love hikes like that, they’re so peaceful and you can just explore and be spontaneous!  But, when it’s just you and the dog and the preschooler and the toddler and getting on toward suppertime, it gets a bit more worrisome!  That was our experience yesterday as we set off to explore a new trail system called Dorris Ranch.

Dorris Ranch is not a ranch at all, but rather fourteen individual hazelnut groves, woodland plots and a few open meadows on over 250 acres.  The hazelnut (or filbert) groves date back to 1905 and apparently half of our nations hazelnut trees originated from the Dorris Ranch!  There are miles of winding trails through the groves, but we naturally decided to take the shortest loop (about a half mile) as we planned to visit a new playground as soon as we were done.   Thankfully our adventure boy is in this “be prepared for anything” stage and I’m so glad he is!  He insisted on bringing his backpack with water and trail mix and we tucked a park map in there, too. Though the colored pencils and bungee cord were not found to be as helpful, we were prepared.

The map was nice to have, though I may not have looked at often enough.  We totally missed our cut off trail and took a loop that ended up being well over two miles.  With the wee ones in sandals and it getting close to dinner time.  I was bracing myself for the meltdowns, but attempted to be proactive in motivating them and distracting them from their discomfort.  And you know what?  It worked!  And I feel like they learned stuff, or at the very least, practiced what they already knew.  I was so pleased I thought I’d share with you in the rare case that you might find yourself in a similar predicament one day.  But probably not.  Most people actually read the maps they pick up for the hike!  Haha! Oh, well, it was an adventure all right!

So first off, we took a lot of breaks.  But not as soon as I heard a complaint.  Well, toddlers don’t really do waiting very well, so she did get carried a fair portion.  But when our bigger hiker thought he could go no farther, we would pick the farthest spot we could see to choose as a resting place.  Then we would sit down, take a drink of water and a handful of trail mix and I got to explain how muscles get stronger by being used and how we need to feed them the protein from the nuts we were eating (and the meat later on).  We kept that new playground as a goal when they didn’t want to get moving again.

As we trudged along we made up a sort of scavenger hunt of a few things from the schoolbooks this morning: shapes and colors.  This was such a great motivator as it kept them engaged in their surroundings and seeking to get farther down the trail to discover the next surprise!  Here are our results for the shapes.  Some of them are a bit of a stretch, but given the circumstances, I thought we did quite well:

Circles, ovals, triangle, square, rectangle, octagon.  At one point our loop followed a paved bike path so we were able to find many geometric shapes.

And the colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, grey, brown.

Oh, and giving points made it extra exciting.  We weren’t really even counting up to anything, but they were points!  We also had the random teaching moments like how the hazlenuts we saw lying on the ground were the hazelnut tree’s seeds and how the whole tree grew from the little nut-seed.  We talked about how the noisy wind bending the trees’ boughs was like God: powerful and strong, but invisible.  We can see what He’s doing but not God Himself.  We even took time (too late) to look over the map together and begin to talk about how they work and how they help us.  Yup, I was pretty much just preaching to myself there.  And random excitement: we found a really tame parakeet.  Pretty sure those aren’t wild around here.  I tried to catch him, but he didn’t think that was a good idea.  Though he let me get close enough to touch him several times.  I didn’t even know what to do!  I’m sure he’s someone’s escaped pet! 

At last we saw the truck!  And it was all downhill from there (literally and figuratively!)  We made it, and with no meltdowns!  Thank You, God!  And for those of you curious, we found a lovely playground and stayed there until dusk and the little ones sure slept good that night!  I did get to thinking these scavenger hunts might be fun to do even when not necessary.  So I whipped up some check lists to use on our next hike to help keep the focus. Maybe I'll keep a pen to cross the words off or better yet: stickers!  If you'd be interested in them, you can just click the photo to enlarge it and print a couple to keep in your vehicle for your next journey!  Happy learning and adventuring!

Tiny Creatures of the Deep Woods

~Mollusks and Millipedes and More (Oh My!)~

How was your Labor Day weekend?  We just returned from camping a few hours ago and I’m so excited to hammer out this post now that the tiny tykes are tuckered out and tucked in!  Sorry, sometimes the alliterations just slip out!  They’re so fun, I just can’t help myself!  This long weekend was spent with some new-found (to me and the kids) family from the area at the peaceful Indian Creek.  I love the Pacific Northwest’s towering trees that are drenched in moss and wading through ferns!  I do believe we got to pitch our tent amongst one of the loveliest scenes on God’s gorgeous planet, and that’s saying something! Many hours were spent wading in the water, hiking to waterfalls and talking around the camp fire, but I really love how my children got to study new creatures they’d never seen before!  Oh, the wonder!

The most numerous was the millipede!  I have rarely seen these creatures in my life, but there was an abundance this weekend!  There literally must have been thousands along our first hike; so many that you nearly couldn’t take a step without stepping on one!  Josh told our little guy that they may be poisonous, so he tried to rid the world of as many as possible, “so they won’t hurt anyone!”  But then we thought about how they would make a lovely bird feast, so he didn’t feel like he had to carry that responsibility himself! 

Still, at least the first couple were fascinating to all of us, especially how they moved their legs in waves down their bodies.  We talked about how the name described the creature (mili means thousand, pede means foot).  One of the little girls gathered some in a jar and we learned that they secrete a horrible odor when they feel threatened!  I was curious to learn more and found a little about these interesting creatures from A to Z animals.  They are invertebrates with 80-400 legs (not a thousand) but they only start out with 6!  As they grow, they shed layers and gain legs.  They are omnivores and some are indeed poisonous, though the only non-vegetarian dish the largest ones (they can get up to 15 inches) would eat would be small insects. 

A few caterpillars caught the attention of curious eyes for a while as well.  We stopped our little protector from his stomping rampage to remind him how caterpillars grow up to be butterflies and we need not be concerned with that creature!  There is a ton of information out there about the caterpillar's life process so I’m not going to rehash it here, but if you’re looking for good recources, kids butterfly is a good place to start or the butterfly site. 

 

At night, the kids and I sat on the bank of the creek and I watched them discover bats for the first time!  And while we were watching, a great blue heron flew right over our heads as it followed the creek bed!  We also found some fascinating spiders the next morning!

But the creature that enthralled my children the most was the humble snail!  We discovered a few over the course of the weekend and these little ones would just crouch down and watch.  It was amazing to see children so small gaze intently and be so still for so long!  I love that they are learning the benefits of being still from time to time.  I guess I want to learn how to do that better, too.  To just stop and watch.  To take it all in and learn and grow in that still time.  Hm, didn’t I just write myself a reminder card to be still? 

Anyway, we grew up with plenty of snails and slugs in our lives, but I wanted to see if we could learn anything new about them, too.  I found some great  information at Snail World.  Did you know snails can live up to 25 years old, or that they can see and smell, but not hear?  They are nocturnal and so strong they can lift ten times their body weight.  Snail World also has a kids page where I learned they like to eat calcium for a strong shell and that they actually have microscopic teeth.  The page has a print out and lots more info for my homeschooling  friends out there.  Although we didn’t want to transport one in the car, we’re considering keeping a snail or two in a jar in the house for a bit and the above mentioned page also has some great ideas for snail pet care. 

So much of our weekend was spent looking at tiny things.  Then we stumble across the great majesty of the ancient trees and the depths to which the waterfalls plummet!  Does this remind anyone else of the multiple facets of God?  So often I get so focused on what I can see of Him here and what I can see Him doing now that I forget that He is so much more than we can imagine!  Dad always used to explain it by stabbing a pencil through a piece of paper and showing us how we can be like two dimensional paper so that all we see of God (parablized by the pencil) in our little world is a circle, when in reality, there is depth and understanding to Him that we can’t begin to imagine!  Wow!  That’s my Jesus in whom I can trust!  Creator of the largest and tiniest wonders…

 

Water Doodles

Good morning!  We had such a lovely weekend with my parents here and now Josh’s folks are coming down tomorrow!  This is one of the biggest reasons why we moved down from Alaska: more family time.  I love seeing my children loving on and being loved by their grandparents!  We’re having some fun adventures that I’m sure to share with you later, but in the busy week I wanted to offer you my water doodles (quick water color paintings).

My dearest friend in Fairbanks was always so good about putting verses to paper and sharing them.  I continue to have these handwritten notes around the house as reminders as I pass through the room.  Life gets crazy sometimes and you might glance at something like this when you wouldn’t sit down in the moment to read your Bible.  They can be a quick scrawl or a work of art, but it’s been proven that writing things out helps you to remember them, so I wanted to give it a try, too, then share with you!  Feel free to print them out and tack them up where you’ll see them through the day, or I’ve saved similar verse art to my phone and use them as my lock screen background so I’m reminded every time I turn it on. 

Now that I’ve talked about verses, I have to admit that I didn’t actually write any full verses into these pieces.  Think of them more like reminder cards, or write out the verse to the side (it will help you remember! =)  The first says “Be Still” at the bottom.  This is to reference Psalm 46:10.  The whole verse says, “Be still, and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”  There are (many) times that we get way too busy, so much so that we sort of become dazed and confused.  Refocus and prioritize.  The exalted God is first.  This verse comes at the end of the chapter that begins, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  Don’t put Him on the back burner! Note that I am preaching to myself here! =)

The second is from an old song that you can find in an old recording on youtube.  And the lyrics go like this:

"Life is easy, when you're up on the mountain
And you've got peace of mind, like you've never known.
But things change, when you're down in the valley.
Don't lose faith, for you're never alone.

For the God on the mountain, is the God in the valley.
When things go wrong, He'll make them right.
And the God of the good times
is still God in the bad times.
The God of the day is still God in the night.

We talk of faith way up on the mountain.
Talk comes so easy when life's at its best.
Now down in the valleys, of trials and temptations
That's where your faith, is really put to the test."

Can you relate?  Is it easy to say you believe when life is fine and everyone around you is a believer?  What happens when it’s not?  God doesn’t change and He never leaves.  Malachi 3:6a says, “For I the LORD do not change”.  Pretty comforting, really.  And good to know that though the hard times will come, even if we cannot handle what we face, HE is the same, HE is with us to allow us to handle anything when we put our trust in Him. 

I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend and that these simple reminders can help you rest and refocus during this time!  And maybe squeeze in an adventure or two!  What’s going on in your lives during this break?

Inspriation for Life and Apples

Do you have anyone in your life who has (or continues) to inspire you creatively?  Those people you admire are vital, but what about those who invest in your creativity, who are honest but encouraging and thought provoking…  I hope you do, but either way, I’d like to share some of mine with you, to pass their inspiration along so that it might benefit more.

Meet my parents!  My first inspirer-ers.  Is that a word?  It is now…  Anyway, they have been encouraging and uplifting from day one and it's so exciting to see them investing in and inspiring my children now, too!  I love this photo of them because it makes me laugh every time.  So here’s the back story: we were walking along a windy beach, I got ahead a little bit and looked back to see them walking along together, talking and laughing.  So romantic!  I whipped out my camera to capture the moment and this is what I got:  Mom reaching down to pick up a shell and Dad holding out his jacket to fly!  They love each other and they love life!

Dad claims this is a more natural pose =)

I could go on about how wonderful they both are, but my purpose of this post is to encourage you with something that they gave, and continue to give me.  My Dad is the most God-loving, hard-working, creative man I’ve ever known.  Although I don’t think he would consider himself artsy, he sees the beauty and majesty of God’s creation in everything from the greatest mountains to the smallest microbe.  And he’s so good about inviting others into the outdoors (or anything he’s interested in, really) and making it fun.  I want to be that kind of person to others.  I can’t think of anything more inspiring than creation and the God it directs us to.  And his creativity comes out in more electronic ways, also, that I can only hope to understand someday!

He and Mom both share this knack for making things work.  If you can’t afford it or can’t get it, then you find a way to do it yourself or take what you already have to substitute. This led to teaching us the determination and perseverance that many projects throughout life require.   Of course this comes with some trial and error, but I love their stance that mistakes are for learning!  I also love their giving hearts.  Yes, it’s good to make and do, but so much better to share these things with others!

Now Mom is very much the sort of person who would just rather create things herself.  Her “famous” quote has always been, “we could make that!”  When you make it yourself it is the ideal size, shape, color, function…why pay more when we could do it ourselves?  Also, her love for animals had encouraged many to care for their critters well.  Again, I could quote them both until the cows came home and one quick blurb will not do justice to all their words of advice, encouragement, wisdom and inspiration.

But one more thing I’ve admired about them is that they always try to find the good in every situation. Which leads us to my bridge to the apples: they are one of Mom’s favorite things!  Though autumn has never been her favorite season, she’s always enjoyed apples whether they be baked in a dish or standing alone.  This is the first year since I lived with them that we’ve had an apple tree in our back yard and I LOVE it!  Free fruit!  Fruit was so precious in Alaska, we are kind of going crazy with all the fruit now.  I can’t stand to see any of it go to waste!  It is an old, untended tree that we have here, so it has been necessary to cut out the big bruises and insects.  Still, I have been making as many apple dishes as I can!  I wanted to share an apple round-up with you of some of the recipes I have been using (and a couple I’d like to try!)

1.       Dried apple chips: may be done in the oven or a dehydrator.  Or even strung on a thread and hung on the hearth if you want to do it the truly rustic way!  I followed this simply wonderful recipe and my huge batch disappeared in a matter of days.

2.       Mountain Apple Dumplings.  The official recipe for this will be coming soon, but if you’re in a hurry and want the unedited (well-loved) version, zoom in on my recipe card below. 

3.       Apple Cider Vinegar:  well, except for the cider bit.  You just use the toss-away cores and skins instead!  This may not save time or much money, but how cool is it that you don’t have to throw away your cores or skins!  The homemade vinegar recipe can be found here in her creative post.

4.       Apple Crisp: This crisp has been my go-to this season and we’ve already made three batches!  Perfect combo of warm tart apples, and cinnamon, oat gooiness!

5.       Irish Apple Cake/Bread: Straight from the Emerald Isle, this lady’s concoction is sure to make you feel like you’re sitting at the comfort of a warm hearth on a soft morning.

Yet to try:

1. Apple Fritter Bread
2. Easy Apple Pie
3. Mini Carmel Apples
4. Also, I have yet to find chickens to feed the pieces that are unfit for my family!  There’s always those super bruised pieces or the ones that had (or have) worms leave their marks.  It makes me miss having chickens because I hate throwing anything away! 

 And here's one last apple bonus: how to keep your apples from browning!

Oh, man, this is making my mouth water!  You can have your pumpkin spice!  I’ll take apple as my autumn flavor any day!  What will you be doing with your apples this year?  I hope you’ll get a chance to try some of these delectable delights during this time of changing seasons!  Oh!  And if you’re able, give your folks (or mine) a hug and let them know how they’ve inspired you in life!  If not, be that inspiration to someone else!

 

5 Ways We Took Preschool Beyond the Books--Our First Week!

 

 

Four years old and incredibly excited to start school.  Well, in his words, he wanted to “go to university” but we explained to him how he had to take first steps first.  It feels like we are always teaching him new things and he’s just a little sponge anyway, so preschooling at home seemed like a great idea to me, too!  So we got tiny backpacks (sister couldn’t be left out), some basic supplies, and a few simple work books.  We added in what we already had at home (crayons, glue, ruler, scissors, “science” books) and his anticipation was tangible!

We weren’t going to start until the local schools did, but I realized his excitement was not going to allow his supplies to wait at this point, so we set a start date for the following Monday.  At last the day arrived and he powered though all his lessons and put his stickers on his chart like a champ!

As I woke him up for our next day of school I told him with enthusiasm, “and we get to do school again today!”  To which he responded, “MOM, do we HAVE to!?”   Really!?  That was all I got!?  ONE day of excitement about school!  Boy, I was going to have to get creative, and quick!  =)  Thankfully, as soon as we started, he was really into it again.  But it definitely got me thinking about how I was going to keep this boy engaged.

So with that, I bring you our second week of preschool:

1.       Stick Letters:  Thankfully he can form his name with mostly straight lines.  Our only trouble was his sister trying to rearrange the letters to suit her own creativity!  I’d like to try this again with other new words as he learns them.

 

2.       Insect Anatomy: As we read about the basics of insects this week, we decided to grab a bag and collect whatever little pieces we thought we might be able to glue down.  We counted antennae, wings and legs of our newly made insects and found symmetry in that the insect would have the same number of parts (legs/wings/antennae) on one side as it did on the other. Then we were able to examine a couple live ants in our driveway!

 

 

3.       Chalk Tracing:  I know not everyone has a place to scrawl on with chalk (this is the first time we ever have!) but could be done just as easily with crayons/markers on paper.  This is all over Pintrest, but the idea is that you write a simple word (I did mine in a pale yellow so he could really see his red or blue chalk over it.  Then we would talk about the sounds each of the letters made and blend them together until he read each word!  This last step took a little determination, but he was so excited when he did finally READ a word!

4.       Rendering Lard: I’ll be writing a post about this later, but this was a fascinating experiment!  For those of you who do not know, lard is pig fat that is rendered through a slow heating process.  It’s used like shortening in baking and is making a comeback for it’s natural, healthful properties (Lauren goes into that in a little more detail on her page).  Anyway, this led to some interesting conversations about what lard was, and then what fat was, why our body needs it, but not too much, and what was left over after the lard was removed (small portions of muscle, blood vessel, and tendon) and then their role in the body.

5.       Baking:  I’m not going to lie, here: baking with these wee ones can be super stressful sometimes.  I’ve come to realize that many recipes are more forgiving than they let on, because there is no way we ended up with the right proportions of the ingredients!  But, we were able to use some of our fresh lard to make snickerdoodles (having cookies as an end product is always great inspiration to be a good helper!)  Although they don’t understand the fractions or even the measurements yet, we talked about them and he was really pointing out which measuring cups were bigger than others and asking about why we needed one teaspoon of salt instead of one cup! 

 

We still did our work books, science reading, and bible verses, but doing the extras and taking it outside sure kept him focused longer.  And with much more enthusiasm!  I hope these ideas have sparked some ideas of your own!  What have you done to keep your little ones engaged?  I would love to hear how you find ways to incorporate real life into your school!