Outdoor Challenges #16 & 17

We've been enjoying a little break from planned activities but now we are trying to get back into the swing of things with Outdoor Challenge #16 . It is almost too late in our area for planting sunflowers but hopefully this will work out. The kids have been doing some gardening with their grandparents so when I pulled out the supplies they knew exactly what to do. It was fun just sitting back and watching them work. Sam could even read the package of seeds enough to know when to expect them to germinate and bloom. He has become quite the "teacher" for Charlotte and seemed to enjoy instructing her in the process of planting seeds.

I did not plan to do Outdoor Challenge #17 today but the kids wanted to go for a ride in the wagon and take a look at our trees. Sam made some really cool observations. He noted the differences in our leaves texture from when they were budding in the spring and now. He spent quite a bit of time trying to find the creature that was munching on our Elm without success. Charlotte really enjoyed it and picked up quite a bit of new vocabulary today.

Outdoor Challenge #15

We were traveling the Friday that we would have normally done the Outdoor Hour Challenge #15. Nature study helps the miles go by! We id'd our trees that we saw on the way.....Loblolly pines and Southern Magnolia were the ones we saw the most frequently. We counted Egrets that we saw under the Basin Bridge portion of 1-10....37. We realized that yellow Daylillies are a favorite at roadside parks because they were at every single one that we stopped at from Texas to Florida.

Ahh vacation! We spent the week at "The Beach House" on Amelia Island. This is the second time we have stayed at this particular house and I suspect we will head back sometime in the future because we have not explored every nook and cranny of the island. Fabulous place to visit for nature lovers. We of course spent alot of time at the beach. Charlotte's favorite activity was playing in the tide pools. Sam loved it all.....riding wave, flying kits, building sand castles, crawling aroung the sand like a crab from Burgess' Seashore book that we have been reading.

We also spent alot of time exploring Fort Clinch State Park. Florida has the BEST state parks and we usually spend quite a bit of time in them every time we visit. Fort Clinch has a fort that Sam loved, a beach area, a river area, a play ground and hiking trails with real Florida alligators. Yes we did see one but didn't stay to take a picture!



What are these kids looking at?


Red Ear Sliders. We were warned that the was an aligator that has been spotted in this water so we stayed high up on the bridge on today's visit.

Once back home we went to our butterfly garden in hopes to draw some flowers. Sam was absolutely not interested in drawing flowers. I will use the resources that Barb-Harmony Art Mom suggested in Outdoor Hour Challenge #15 to continue drawing in my journal and perhaps Sam will join me.

The butterfly garden is in full-bloom. The flowers are taller than Charlotte. You can barely see Sam in this picture but he is there standing tall trying to see me over the blooms.

Outdoor Challenge #14

Pressing Flowers- Green Hour #14

The flower of the week was our Hibiscus. We reviewed the anther and filiment and our new flower part is the stigma which is quite prominant on a Hibiscus. Our plant had flowers in all stages from buds to faded blooms. We also took a good look at our Huisache-Daisy and were able to see them in all stages as well.
Sam watched the video from Green Hour #14 , helped me gather supplies and gathered our Huisache-Daisy and Hibiscus. He was upset that there weren't more variety in our backyard! Charlotte brought us a few Dandelions to press as well. Sam is thinking about what to do with these flowers after they are pressed - his suggestions was to make bookmarks.....we'll see how they turn out.

This was the simplest flower press to make! He could do it all by himself!

Outdoor Challenge #13

We wanted to take a closer look at our Stargazer Lily but there were no blooms. Sam found perhaps the saddest looking trumpet lily in a much neglected part of our yard- I had quite forgotten that it existed.

We laminated the front and back of one card with the parts of the flower from Barb- Harmony Art Mom's Green Hour Challenge #13. The second card has our Stargazer Lily on one side and our Trumpet Lily on the other.

I wanted to ID the anther and filament since they so prominent on these specimens. Sam wanted to ID all the parts so that is what we did. I think Sam is going to have an easy time remembering our terms for this week-our lily's anther was LOADED with pollen and he was covered with it by the time he was done examining it.

We walked around the yard taking photos of our flowers for the upcoming week and we came across these bugs. I'm not sure what they are but we'll keep an eye on them to see if we can figure it out.

Outdoor Challenge #12

New Nature study focus-Green Hour Challenge #12

Sam has had his eye on this particular kit for a while so when I mention that we were going to plant some seeds there was no doubt which seeds we were going to plant! I purchased the fly trap terranium and we kneeded the peat moss and then Sam added the water to make the mixture.

He created a "river" with rocks and added a mini snake for good measure. Now we finally get down to business and plant the tiniest seeds you can imagine. The next step is to........place terratium in the refrigerator and leave for 8 WEEKS before continuing the planting procedure. This is know as stratification. AHHHH.....I know I did this with the older kids but I don't remember this particular step! Check back with us sometime in August.....we'll have some Venus Fly Traps to show ya'll.

Outdoor Challenge #10 & #11

Green Hour Challenge #10 asked us to have an outdoor picnic. My kids thought I'd lost it when I took this picture of them eating today. We eat outdoors several times a week most of the year-although usually not junk food like today!

Green Hour Challenge #11 asked us to start a seasonal tree study. Our focus area this quarter has been trees and we are ambitious and are going to try to follow 6 of the trees in our yard. We shall see how that turns out this year.....

Big Sis' joined us for a hike after lunch. We were able to climb the bike trails which is far more exciting then walking the flat walking paths. Sam calls this off-roading and it is one of his favorite activities.
We also toured a local sea turtle facility. Awesome! We've toured one during a recent trip to Florida but yesterday we were able to get up close. It was SO hot in there the kids were beet red and our clothing was drenched with sweat when we left.

Charlotte was amazed by the babies and didn't want to leave their tank. Sam was fascinated with the 2 year old turtles and we learned that in nature it would take these loggerhead turtles 7 years to reach this size.

Outdoor Challenge #9

We spent the day attempting to volunteer at the butterfly garden and chasing Charlotte which didn't work out very well. While we were there we got a chance to watch this baby armadillo do some serious rooting around in square foot area.

Be the armadillo, Sam! We did not have as much luck finding items as the armadillo but it sure was fun pretending.