Outdoor Hour Challenge. V.

We’re up to lesson number seven in our Outdoor Hour Challenge.

Despite the picture that may imply otherwise, the kids are still completely engaged.

And – equally exciting – are coming to expect this Nature Walk as part of our Tuesday routine.

This week we took our stroll through the woods surrounding our house.

We practiced being quiet and listening.  We looked for signs of birds.  We spotted another bird’s nest and witnessed quite a few birds enjoying our new feeder.

And then we headed in with a handful of items for our collecting mantle – a pair of pine cones and some conjoined acorn lids.

Our assignment was to begin a field guide for our own home.

Our focus this term is birds and that was our goal for the field guide’s first entry.

But we just couldn’t all agree on which birds we actually saw.

We did get pleasantly distracted, however, by discovering the identity of two gigantic trees in our yard.

They are two hemlock trees.

And since observation is the goal, we just went with the flow.

Our first formal family field guide entry became the eastern hemlock.

London drew the tree on the unlined side of an index card.

Bergen drew the pine cones.  Mosely colored in the drawing.

And the kids relayed all the pertinent information to me as I recorded it on the lined side of the index card.

We collectively created an index card cover for our field guide.

And so it begins.

Another great week outside and inside with the Outdoor Hour Challenge.