Two Studies, One Walk: Autumn Nature Series

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

 

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…