Water Week...

As some of you know from last week's blog: this summer is mommy camp a la Better World Betty. This week's focus is water! Already this morning we saw the first signs that my boys were "getting it" when they noticed the shower water running in the bathroom
"Dad! You're using water!"
"I'm taking a shower. It's not warm yet!"
We raced to get a water bucket, but he had hopped in by the time we all got back.
Welcome to water week,dad, and the three minute shower (which he hasn't yet fully embraced :-).

Knowledge and awareness bring positive change.

We started the week Monday at the library and loaded up on books with titles like: A Drop of Water by Walter Vick (I highly recommend this one! Beautiful photographs), the Magic Schoolbus at the Waterworkswhere Miss Frizzle takes the kids on a tour of the waterworks, Water: What It Is, What It Does by Judith Seixas, The Drop in My Drink by Meredith Hooper and Chris Coady, as well as a book about Hurricanes (my seven year old loves learning about natural disasters) and Tsunamis.

We stopped by a local coffee shop to read them and as we were sitting outside we suddenly felt a raindrop on our arms coming from a single cumulonimbus cloud and one splashed perfectly on our water book. Nice timing by Mother Nature! So we closed our books and talked about where the water that falls from the sky goes. We found a storm grate and investigated. Wow, there are underground pipes that carry water. And we talked about what happens to water when it hits the pavement, compared to water that hits the flowers in the garden across the street.

We are having so much fun with this weekly focus concept. It invites books, discussions, activities, questions (what happens to the stuff in the toilet after we flush it), learning (only 1% of the Earth's water is drinkable), and gratitude into our lives. It's what happens when you eliminate one sense - all the others are heightened. That's what we are doing. Eliminating all the myriad of subjects/possibilities and setting a focus, a kind of microscope to narrow in our perspective. Heightening our ecological awareness.

Friday our field trip is yet to be determined, but we have lots of choices: Sugar Hollow, a local pool, Ivy Creek, or perhaps the Rivanna Solid Waste treatment plant or maybe we need to head straight to the beach to see where the cloud's water gets recycled!

Giving thanks to water,
BWB