A Beautiful Collection

Whenever it is possible, the pupils should themselves bring the material, as the collecting of it is an important part of the lesson.

~Handbook of Nature Study, pg 8.

I have a passionate treasure hunter that whenever he sees something that captivates him he must not exceptions bring it home. We started filling mason jars years ago and have many of them displayed in his room full of "treasures". When we started our nature walks we experienced the same thing only this time they were real treasures that we all wanted to keep. For weeks we have been collecting these little treasures from nature but sadly they all seem to meet some sort of doom because they can not find a home, well we have finally found a home for them. It is a small home that I know we be overtaken soon but the good thing about shelves is that you can add more! I am anxious to see our little collection grow as we venture more in nature. There is nothing like bringing the outside in :0).

I also found a nice little spot for our nature journals, Handbook of Nature Study and colored pencils.

The Green Hour, Challenge #2

So we didn't stay in our back yard this week we decided to venture out there and go to a near by park. It was an absolutely oddly gorgeous day, 80 degrees! We were outside all day long, after my miserable visit to the dentist.

Now relax and join us in our Nature Walk highlights:

This was a funny little guy, he unexpectidly jumped on Superman into the water. He surprised us all. We lost him for a minute in the water but soon found him snuggled up under a rock. I moved it and he allowed us to snap a few pictures of him. We found out he was a Plain Leopard Frog, very cool!

A hole! What the imagination can think of when one sees a hole in the ground!

Superman speculated that lightning struck this tree causing the split down the middle of it, as for all the holes in it, he is stumped.

Interesting and a little scary was to find a large cage out in the trees, some sort of trap we all concluded. T-Rex and Superman assumed to catch the wandering Lions, Dragons and Hippopotami.

These, whatever they were, hurt.

Here are Superman's Hairy White Flowers.

The thorny tree that lead us into a discussion about the crown of thorns that Jesus wore.

Clover with purple marks in the middle of each leaf, we searched for a 4 leafer but left empty handed.

A cluster of berries on a bare bush.

A slippery slope into the mud shed a few tears from T-Rex.

On our drive down our street I noticed some blossums and thought Superman would enjoy looking at their faces. I reminded him of the closed flower, Daffadil, we saw last week and showed him what they look like when they are opened:

And then on the way back to our house he accidently disturbed a big hill of ants with his foot and we watched as they frantically searched about in the devastation:

We had a truly amazing experience in our Nature Walk today! After we finally got home I began dinner and encouraged the boys to journal about their nature walk:

Superman's Journal is above and Momma's is below, I am working on helping T-Rex with one of his own. He has a journal but I am trying to assist him.

At dinner we all discussed our words of description.

Our 1 word to express what we "heard" on our nature walk: tweet, splash and snap.

Our 2 words to express what we "saw" on our nature walk: berry tree, underwater frog and thorny tree.

Our 3 words to express what we "felt" on our nature walk: White hairy flower, inclined uncomfortable bench and rusty old branch.

I leave you with a picture of my handsome boys and myself together after our excursion!

Green Hour Challenges can be found at Heart of Harmony! Thanks Barb, you are an awesome encouragement!

Right up our alley!

Our nature walk that is....we stepped out our back door into Nature to enjoy His creation! Really that is as far as you have to go sometimes, very exciting and dangerous! Posted on almost every chain length face we read this: Beware of Dogs, and the sounds of thunderous barking followed us like a wave, I tried to shut my mind off my fears and imagine that their bark is probably worse than their bite.

It wasn't a long journey just around the block but we did find a lot of interesting things to ponder at. Superman was on a search to find a stick bug while T-Rex was looking for roley poleys, beautiful Butterfly was just along for the ride and I was just delighted to enjoy His creation together. I had to re-focus little eyes and minds off of little "treasures" and onto leafs, sticks and trees in search of intrigueing creatures and mysterious wonders of plant life.

Superman carried the bug habitat just incase we found an interesting creature to bring home, like a stick bug. T-Rex was packed with a clear back pack to collect objects of interest and to make him feel very important! Under each picture are the curious questions and statements that the object of interest brought about from little or bigger minds.

Want to see what we saw...

I wonder what type of weed this is? It is very interesting.

Wow... a HUGE ant hill.

Does a squirrel live in that hole?

What kind of flower is that? It is my favorite color.

Look at this! Feel it, it is soft, I have never felt a piece of wood soft like this before!

Hey, look what is that! A snake, I wonder what kind he is? and where is his head?

My little T-Rex holding a stick he found and a flag!

Okay so the water meters in front of everyone's house was the most interesting place to find hiding bugs! Go figure.

Here is our complete collection after we go home. The big piece of wood was a home for a lot of roley poleys.

Superman decided he wanted to learn more about the snake we found and the piece of wood that mysteriously feels like a sponge. He can not understand how it is so soft unlike any pieces of wook he has every felt before. :0) Thanks Barb for the encouragement in the Green Hour!