Super Secret Swimming Spot

Today we went to the creek to swim and play.

For security reasons I can’t tell you where it is (mainly because I don’t want to share the spot.) But, if you can guess from these pics then you can come! I’ll give you a hint we’re by the Platte River.

So, we go over the bridge and through the woods to the swimming hole we go.

We found this place on my Mother’s day hike and I knew it would be the best summer swimming place. Most people in Highlands Ranch would probably prefer to take their kids to the whale pool, and that’s fine by me, because then I get to enjoy all of this.

We got in the water and walked around to check out the tree around the bend.

On the way there we saw a huge fish in the water (maybe 15”) in one deep pool. So there are fish in here, good to know.

We played around by the tree and saw a blue damselfly and then we went back to our main play area.

Bethany was piling sand while Hannah splashed and Grace ran around.

We talked about Mayan temples in South America and Bethany molded her mound into one.

We talked about how they made calendars and were very studious people. Then Bethany noticed a ladybug on her flower and that got us wandering around to the purple flowered plants finding ladybugs.

They weren’t hard to find - a little red among the green and purple.

After playing with a few we wandered down the creek in the other direction.

Down this way we found some ‘allergy’ as Grace calls it (algae.)

We also found some cattail and Grace pretended to make papyrus out of them by smashing them to bits with a rock. As we were pounding this plant and talking about Egyptians making papyrus, we thought it would be a good idea to make our own paper. We decided that we’d come back with a baggie and get some of the green leaves and flowers and take them home to add to some paper we’re going to make for Tea Tuesday. It’s going to be much easier to make paper out of tissue and newspaper than a green plant!

We found little tiny green spores inside the stalk that would later be the white seeds inside the brown things on top of the cattails in the late summer/fall. This also prompted a reminder of plant cells vs. animal cells since we could se the cell walls inside the plant very easily.

After traipsing around the other end of the creek we came back to the main play area and I sat down while the girls played.

The blue damselfly came back and sat on my arm, a ruby-throated hummingbird flew by, a mallard duck flew up and landed in the water and the birds were chattering all around.

Grace found some funky beetles digging holes in the sand and Hannah helped with the ‘digging to find buried treasure’. We also noticed how the water carved out the rim of the sand banks, just like the Colorado river carved out the monument in Grand Junction.

On a walk back by the tree we found empty thistle flowers, cottonwood hanging low and 2 white butterflies playing around.

After a little more splashing it was time to go with one last stop at the rapids on the Platte.

That was wonderful, educational and exciting.

I can’t wait to go back many times this summer.

This is just one more example of how we ‘homeschool’ everyday even if books aren’t involved.