Joanne

Unschooling Gathering - Camping on Long Island

Several unschooling families will be camping at Heckscher State
Park's camp ground on Long Island, NY, from August 26th through
September 4th this summer and would welcome other unschoolers
joining the group for all or part of that time. There are still many
sites available. We've done this in past years and it's always nice
to have other families coming and going throughout the week.

Heckscher State Park is a short car ride away from Long Island's
barrier island ocean beaches. The park itself offers great bike
trails, a bay beach, fishing, clamming, crabbing, boat ramp into
Great South Bay (great for Kayaking and canoeing) and a huge
swimming pool along with playground, basketball courts, etc - all
within the park. While the park is huge, the campground itself is
shaded and simple as state parks tend to be, however, it does have a
decent bathhouse. The small campground office puts on a family video
in the evenings and we've sometimes brought our own movie which the
park ranger was willing to use.

In the past, while camping at the park, we have done many great day
trip adventures to different Fire Island ocean beaches. It's a short
20 minute drive to Robert Moses and Fire Island Ferries nearby.
Sunken Forest/Sailors Haven on Fire Island has a nature center,
nature trials and kids programs throughout the week. The Light house
at Robert Moses also has a museum tour and boardwalk trail over the
dunes.

There is easy grocery shopping within 10 minutes from the park and a
great farm stand and health food store in Sayville less than 20
minutes away. Also - being on Long Island - you have all
the 'benefits' of suburban amenities you can imagine within a 20
minute radius. We've spent rainy days at laundry mats and Barnes &
Noble or nearby movie theaters if needed - I think there is a local
roller rink - though we've never gone. One year we ventured to the
big water park further out on long island. Our family usually spends
one day of the camping trip driving out to Montauk early in the
morning and returning to the campground late at night.

In the past we've kept it pretty flexible and loose, not doing too
much planning so that families and individuals can follow their own
needs while providing a great group experience. This camping trip is
organized in such a fashion that being together doesn't mean anyone
is obligated to follow anyone else's agenda or schedule, however,
there is always a lot of overlap, shared meals, shared bike trips,
beach trips, pool trips, etc. If we're a large group, we try not to
complicate the trip by expecting or planning an entire group to do
the same thing each day throughout the week. Though group outings
are great!

We booked site #11. Adjacent sites are available: site 10 & 12 & 20,
21 & 22. Some for the entire 8 or 9 nights some for just part of
that time. You'll find out when you go online or call reserve
america 1 800 456 camp (2267).

If you want more information or details please feel free to contact
me directly. And feel free to spread the word to other
unschoolers/unschooling lists.

Lisa Heyman
Lmanathome@...

Sandra Dodd

-=-Unschooling Gathering - Camping on Long Island-=-


I've put the information here, so if anyone gets interested later and
is worried about finding it...
http://sandradodd.com/conferences

But I should point out that the yahoogroups have a MUCH better search
function in the archives than they used to have.

Sandra

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