Does anyone homeschool and use camping as being educational?

The title asks it all. I am homeschooling my children. No matter what we are doing, I try to include some kind of education as well. In what ways would you consider camping as educational?

 

I think I commented on one of Grace's posts that was similar? My oldest will start homeschool next year.


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I was not home-schooled; nor my children; but even so, I do consider that camping, and similar related activities are absolutely educational for children. there is just so much that you. Can learn, and teach your children about nature when you are out camping, as well as practical experience that will serve them in later life.
I started learning about cooking on a campfire by roasting hot dogs on a stick, and also watching my mother make hot cakes, bacon, and eggs for breakfast over the open campfire. Those hot cakes were the best ones I have ever tasted in my whole life ! !
Plus, we would catch and clean fish to cook for dinner, so I learned about doing that. I had swimming lessons at the lakes, learned how to row a boat (and not go around in circles), and had fun hiking in the woods.
My dad showed me the tiny red kinnikinnick berries, and told me they were edible, although not very tasty. the same ting with the Oregon grapes which grew everywhere.
I think that all of these kinds of things are as much of an important part of a child's education as anything that we learn in school. I have never needed to know when it was that the cotton gin was invented; but being able to build a campfire has come in handy many times throughout my lifetime.

 

That ol Eli Whitney. That's funny lol. I've never even thought about the cotton gin since that dusty paragraph in a textbook.


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Yes, that was my thought exactly !
While I am thankful for the education that I received , there are just so many important things that we learn when we are interacting with our family, and with nature itself; that this is an invaluable part of our education, and one that we are more apt to use during our lifetime than some of the things that we studied in school.
I think that the children who never get to actually go out and spend time in the mountains and the lakes just never really develop that full appreciation of nature (and of God) that we do when we are out there enjoying the bounties of this beautiful earth.

 

I used to be a scoutmaster for community scouts. They are the young boys who want to be boy scouts regardless of their school. The age is from 8 to 17 although what I handled was the senior scouts who are aged 13 to 17. It was a fun thing because we taught the boys on how to live in a campsite, how to prepare meals and also how to source out food and implements. Of course, the fire-making course is included but we emphasize on the cooking. I just don't know if there are community scouts in your area.

 

I think that actual "camping out" in the woods or by a lake might be harder to do in some areas than it used to be back when I was growing up, or even when I was raising my children. Most lakes now have established campgrounds, with areas for parking, good roads to get there, and usually they even have one of those little barbecue stands to cook your food on.
When I was camping, we usually went to a remote lake deep in the woods, and traveled on a narrow dirt road to get there. Sometimes, we had to hack the brush off of the road just to drive through it when big limbs had fallen across the road.
Of course, there was no such thing as a cell phone back then, either; so you were truly alone with nature once you got out to the lake where you were camping. Even so, I think that it is a great part of any child's education to be able to go out and experience nature first hand, and learning some survival skills is even better.
The programs like Boy Scouts are great for kids; because not every parent is willing, or able, to take their kids out camping, and being able to experience this with the troop of other boys is also something that they will all remember for the rest of their lives.