“Why is the lake SO blue?”

It was one of the questions a second grader asked as she reached the top of the grassy hill where she got her first glimpse of Lake Poway. And her next one, “Why is it SO big?” The boy next to her chimed in, “It looks like an OCEAN, not a lake!” To say that the kids were impressed with Lake Poway was an understatement. One group noticed that at a certain angle on their hike, the lake was literally sparkling. Their tutor shared about lake descriptions in books and taught them the word, “shimmer” and they then used it about fourteen times each on the remainder of the hike! “Look at the shimmering lake!”

There is really no comparison to the the learning that can happen by taking kids outside of the classroom and experiencing something new. Each of their experiences will now help them relate to texts they are reading. From a shimmering lake to a large water dam to a dusty, almost three mile hike, they experienced them all with their senses—and greatly increased their background knowledge. Some learned how to throw a frisbee for the first time. Others developed perseverance, including our youngest 5 and 6 year old hikers, who finished the entire 2.7 mile loop despite the strange January heat!

Finding and identifying birds, bugs and trees kept some groups busy while others chose to run basically the entire way. We introduced the American tradition of s’mores—and even prepared halal ones—and needless to say, most went back for seconds and thirds.