A couple of years ago, we took the kids on a program they run at a local forest called "Bring a Book To Life." The first time it was based on the book "My Side of the Mountain". They also offer it for another book, "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen, so we took the class again and this time, it was even cooler. The 2 rangers took us through the forest, pointing out wild edibles, telling us how to tell by the sun, which direction is north and how to further tell from that based on shadows, what time of day it was and therefore, how many hours until sunset, in case you are stranded and need to build a shelter before nightfall. Then of course, they took us to build shelters and they had the kid builders get inside and poured water on the outside (hilariously pretending it was raining and cracking jokes the whole time) and a few of the builders got a little bit wet. It was funny. Then, we went to another area and learned how to start fires with flint and steel and a couple of other methods and learned how to boil water in a paper cup complete with demonstration. Then, to another area where the kids got to try and hit target pictures of birds like the ones Brian hunted in the book with first a spear and then an atlatl. So cool. The atlatl is mentioned in one of the book series we have read, Brotherband Chronicles, so we had heard of one, but never seen or used one.
All this for 6 dollars a kid.
Priceless.
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