Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Two Studies, One Walk: Autumn Nature Series

2554230385_267cdef370

We’ve been in a nature kind of mood lately and tackled two of the Autumn Nature Series challenges with one afternoon walk.  We went on the hunt for goldenrods and oaks/acorns.

IMG_3482 IMG_3483 Right off the bat, in our own yard we found both.  Well, here in NW Florida you can’t spit without hitting an oak tree so that wasn’t all that hard lol.  Hard to tell, but ds is holding an acorn.

IMG_3485 Ds3 took his scooter on the walk.  Btw, Barb mentioned cooler weather for enjoying these walks.  Please send some our way and quick!  We were sweating like pigs by the end of the block.

IMG_3491 Along the way we collected acorns and pointed out the oaks in our neighbors’ yards.  At the beginning of our subdivision we found a batch of goldenrod.  The boys made note that in our neck of the woods it tends to grow along the roadside and in bushy/weedy areas.

IMG_3495 We clipped that poor specimen to examine at home…it had wilted and dried up before we even hit the front door lol.  But ds4 and I sketched anyway.

IMG_3497 IMG_3496 Ds said his was goldenrod and flying squirrels…in his defense we did see squirrels on the walk but I don’t think they were of the flying variety.  ;)  I love how he remembered when we noticed on our walk that the leaves on the goldenrod were in the pattern left, right, left, right…some of this info is actually getting through to them!

IMG_3504 

Some of the acorn collection.  I saw a neat craft idea of painting them orange and adding tiny black features to make a jack-o-lantern.  We may try that.

We are really enjoying this series of Outdoor Challenges for our nature study.  Now we just need it to FEEL like Autumn outside…

4 comments:

  1. I know you don't get much of our autumn weather there in Florida but I think you are doing a great job getting out regularly and working on the challenges.

    The goldenrod nature journal entries are fantastic! I just love seeing the little ones working on journals that will become keepsakes in the years to come. I cherish our journals.

    Sending you cool thoughts from our damp but not too cold day here in CA. We did have lots of wind yesterday that knocked a ton of leaves down and made our yard a mess. Raking season has begun.

    Barb-Harmony Art Mom

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can have some of our rain!!! I like your journal pages!

    ReplyDelete
  3. sending you some coolness from Canada :)
    isn't the outdoor challenge great? we love it!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by!