Last weekend we took our rock hound boys out to pan for some gold. They are big into rocks, fossils, gems, GOLD! They’ll look for anything as long as there is water involved. If they are getting soaked and dirty outside, it’s all good!
Where's the gold?
We think it’s a wonderful way to learn about gold. They know the price of gold, they know how to find gold, they know where to look for gold… hey – now who couldn’t use a skill like that? Sure is one way to make some money – with a little extra added skill and lots of luck! 
While we were gold mining, the boys also learned how to help train their dog Snickers. They have been educated quite a bit on what all goes into owning animals. The vet bills, the training, the chewed and or destroyed items, the feeding, the cleaning, the “loss” or “death” of a pet… yep. I can safely say they are pretty knowledgeable on how to care for all types of animals.
Snickers still needs a bit of “socialization” – lol – love that word – but it fits in this case… and leash training. Since she usually goes on voice command and sticks around without running off, we usually don’t leash her. At the gold panning area however, lots of people and lots of other dogs – so leashing was a necessity. Here are a few pics of the Snicker dog on the leash…
Come on Snickers - sniff around here and show us the gold!
Wonder if you can really teach a dog how to sniff out gold? That would be something wouldn’t it?
Hmm, think they would rather go swim...
Wet Dog.
It was a great trip, everyone had fun. Since I had the dog most of the time, I got to snap lots of photos. We even found gold – check it out…
Yes, that really IS a tiny bit of gold.
It was great to have the kids group around (and not just our own) to see what the “flash in the pan” was. One little girl was on the far side of the river with a bunch of other kiddos, (including our boys off and on) – she was shouting out… “I love you daddy! I love you. I love, love, love you!”
I smiled at the dad I didn’t know, and said – “sounds like someone is having fun!” 
He smiled back from ear to ear – and that was just cool. The love of seeing your children so happy to learn and play in a river – enjoying nature and what you can find there. It was awesome.
We love that homeschooling offers our family the ability to teach our kids what they are interested in, WHEN they are interested in it. That’s important. If you try to force a child to learn things they are completely not interested in, and they see no value in learning what you’re teaching – you are wasting your time.
I need to put that in practice more often, when my oldest gets on the computer to do schoolwork. He always goes for vocabulary. Every single time. I’m like “well what about this science one here?” and he’ll go – oh I hate those… because it’s not interactive. It’s dry reading. Go figure.
Add to that – he tends to be like his mother, and want to be a walking vocabulary book. So not only do we have the vocabulary being more interesting with the interactive video – we have the fact that he’s just plain interested in words right now… At The Moment! That could change tomorrow.
Read enough words, and spelling will come naturally – so he’s actually killing two birds with one stone. May as well quit complaining and let him do it.
Last but not least – a few more shots of our gold panning trip…
Finding out where the deep portions of the river are...
Checking out river sand and looking for gold under the microscope.
Common dig
Loving Life!
Thanks!
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