Roxaboxen

We spent a few days at Grandma's house this weekend. It is apple picking time so the adults spent a lot of time pealing, cutting and canning apples. The kids spent a lot of their time out side. The weather was perfect so I often sent them out to enjoy it rather than sit in front of the computer, which they do a lot while at Grandma's house.

At one point, early on in our visit, I realized I hadn't seen Sophie for a few hours. She had been outside for a really long time. The boys had come in and gone out several times but Sophie hadn't made an appearance. So I walked out onto the porch and looked around to see if I could see her.

I walked toward Grandpa's garden and orchard because I knew that was one of the kids favorite places to play. And sure enough, there was Sophie, in the orchard, very intent on what she was doing.

So I walked around to the gate and went inside. Sophie didn't even realize I had come out until I started to ask her about what she was doing. She quickly started telling me all about her project.



She welcomed me to "Roxaboxen" and showed me around. Roxaboxen is a book that we rowed a few years ago when we were going through the Five in a Row curriculum. It is still one of my kids favorite books to have read to them. I often find Sophie reading it to herself. But this is the first time she actually made her own little town of Roxaboxen. In the book the children made a little village or town, with houses, streets, and other buildings all outlined in rocks. The kids then played all sorts of games in this little town of Roxaboxen.

Sophie showed me her house, the general store (complete with some of Grandpa's tomatoes to sell), the church, Ian's house and the jail (Ian is the policeman). Each house or building was built around one of the fruit trees.
We came out to the orchard several times during our visit in order to see the progress the kids were making on their little town. Every time we pulled them away from this project for a bit, they would quickly ask to go out again and work on their village.

After two days of hard work the little town was looking good. The streets were outlined starting from the gate and each tree was nicely decorated to look like whatever purpose it was designated for.




I always love to see what my kids come up with when they have nothing to do. The cousins they usually play with were busy during the few days we were up there and I tried to make sure we kept the movie and computer time to a minimum during our stay. Especially since one of the days we were up there was a school day.



Roxaboxen was almost all Sophie. It was her plan and she carried out most of the construction but the boys sure had a good time playing out there and helping her dreamed up little world come to life. I love to see their imaginations take over.



As we were loading up the car to head back home Ian made the comment "We didn't get to see our cousins even once while we've been here. But we had fun anyway".

Park Day - MUD

Wednesday is the day we go to the park with friends. We rotate around to different parks in the area. My kids love it! Today's park was one of Sophie's favorites. This was the park Sophie always asks to go to.

I am always amazed at those kids who are always spotlessly clean after playing at the park. There is a boy in our group who will play in the sand and even the water but never get dirty. I don't know how he does it. When we go to the park my kids end up so dirty and wet that they often end up going home naked because I have to strip them before they get into the car.

Today was no different. After being at the park maybe 5 min Henry headed over to the sand area where the water faucet was stuck on so there was plenty of puddles in the sand. First thing he did was jump into the center of largest one, shoes, socks and all. He obviously didn't get wet enough because he started doing belly flops into the puddles. I just watched him and thought of all the sand that would be in my car and down my shower drain, of all the laundry I would be doing later, and the screaming I would have to endure to wash all that sand out of his hair.

The other two didn't wait long before joining Henry is his jollity. They too found great pleasure in getting as dirty as they could. I used to fight this kind of play and try to keep them from the sand areas of any park. I gave up and just let them play now. I have spare towels in the car and extra water bottles in the car to wash a little. I get a lot less frustrated when I just let them have their fun. They really aren't doing anything wrong as long as they don't start throwing the wet sand.

It is good for kids to get down into the dirt and play, right? My kids sure do love it!