Morning Coffee – By Aaron Hall, is sponsored by Country Style in Wallaceburg:
Our family took advantage of the great outdoors and the beautiful weather this weekend.
With a backdrop of orange, red, and yellow leaves and a steady warm southern breeze, we set up a fun scavenger hunt for our daughters to enjoy while we spent one of our last days of the season at our trailer.
The preparation for the hunt started on Friday, when we compiled a list, printed it out, rolled it into a scroll and carefully placed it next to the ‘treasure box’ which contained their prize.
The list contained an array of items, which was geared towards Ava and Daylia enjoying the outdoors, working together and getting out and away from the digital screens to explore: a feather, five different leaf shapes, three rocks, three pieces of beach glass (green, white, brown), a footprint, a John Grisham book, three different types of birds, an insect, and on and on.
We picked some items in an attempt to stump the girls somewhat and make them spend some time to work on it.
When faced with the item of ‘The # 10’, the girls gathered some stones into the shape of the number, presto number 10.
For the item ‘gather kindling’, Ava asked exactly what kindling was, and after I told her, she grabbed a smaller piece of wood from our pile and presented it. Nope, it has to be a collection of small twigs and branches that can be used to help start the fire, I said thinking we’d have an enormous pile to use later that evening.
A few seconds later, Ava had a handful of twigs from behind the trailer in her hand, “kindling,” she said.
When it was all said an done, the girls accomplished and found each item on the list and were awarded with their treats from the treasure box.
It may have only taken them an hour or so, but it was an awesome activity nonetheless.
It had them teaming up together, it had them focused on a goal and achieving it, it created some fun discussion, it had them up and moving, it was a learning activity and overall it was just fun.
Interested in trying this out with your family? A good ol’ Google-search is always a good place to start, check this out.
If you have a suggestion, story idea, column idea, or if you want to say hello… drop me an e-mail at aaron@sydenhamcurrent.ca.
Photo of the day
To wrap-up a fun, fall-themed weekend I had the opportunity to take in a Lions football game on Sunday afternoon. Thanks to my father-in-law Dave Rice for the extra ticket and bringing me along. Ford Field was rocking in downtown Detroit as the Lions came away with a 31-28 win.
Weather forecast for Monday, October 16, 2016
Today – Cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers early this morning then a mix of sun and cloud. Risk of a thunderstorm early this morning. Fog patches dissipating this morning. Wind becoming southwest 30 km/h this morning. High 25. Humidex 32. UV index 4 or moderate.
Tonight – A few clouds. Wind southwest 30 km/h. Low 20.
World news
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China’s Shenzhou 11 blasts off to space station
IS loses control of symbolically important city of Dabiq
Love the scavenger hunt!!! So nice to see you and Dana make the smallest game from virtually nothing. More families need to be to get rid of some “screen time” and more play/family time. So glad you enjoyed the football game, Dave enjoyed his time with you too.