Week 5: Leaves

Cold weather has come!  I hope you are all trying to enjoy the change in seasons.  We are missing the warm summer evenings, but enjoying the way this cold weather helps us want to study and read more, curl up by the fire, and sleep deeply at night.  

Andrew pointed out this toadstool the other day after the first snowfall of the year!  I love it!

Let's not skip our outdoor nature study time, just because it is getting cold, though!  Going outside all year long should be one of our goals. Here's some ideas for a few outdoor winter activities

We spotted this leaf on a plant near our home during a family nature walk - isn't it pretty?

We've had some great nature kids club classes!  Two weeks ago, our class was such a fun class with lots of "show and tell".  The Anderson & Harris families brought their pets - two rabbits and two cute kittens.  I think everyone loved meeting these little furballs.  Rebecca Wall brought lots and lots of flower blossoms when I thought all the blooms might already all be dead (that shows the difference in gardening skills between us!)  Thanks also to the Roberts and Ridley families for bringing some flowers.

 Last week, we had a field trip to the Drake's Grandparents yard.  They have a beautiful garden, a fun playground, lots of fruit trees (everyone got to pick plums and apples - yum!), alfalfa orchards, and we got to feed some apples to some neighboring horses.  

Up she goes to find an apple!

Enjoying the sunken garden and waterfall

The pumpkin patch

The Gibson Family caught a snake in their yard!  Everyone was excited to see it.

Gimme that apple!

This week we'll be doing some activities with fall leaves.  If you have some colorful leaves in your yard, please bring some to class.  Lots of them are turning quite brown and crunchy already, but not all of them!

This week's Nature Journal Spotlight is Fisher W.  He drew these pictures of the moon on the week that we studied the sun & moon.  Great job Fisher!

And here are some pictures from our activities on previous weeks:

We made sun prints

Caught a praying mantis!

And a ladybug, among many other crawling critters

Traced our shadows when we were learning about the sun

Found this interesting red beetle

And then Trey and Fisher promptly identified it with their field guide!

Thanks so much for sharing these weekly adventures with me! 

Below are some fun links:

Why do leaves change color?

Some fun autumn learning activities

See you tomorrow!
Tasha