It was a perfect day to enjoy the tall grass in the prairie and try to find insects!  We found several ladybugs and a soldier beetle nest.  There were little soldier beetles on a stem of a plant and a ladybug was making a snack out of them...Mmmm!  We found lots of very vivid orange flowers too!

Everyone chased dragonflies and butterflies through the trails but could never get close enough to one.  We spent the last few minutes sitting under a tree and drawing pictures for our nature notebooks.  They turned out beautiful and even the little ones got involved!

Can you find the little soldier beetles?  (Hint: It's not the brown spots on the plant!)

A female Widow Skimmer dragonfly..

Going on a prairie march..

I started a new group, called the Young Explorers Club, for our homeschooling families to get together and observe nature.  I was browsing blogs of other homeschooling moms and ran across one who just started this club for her homeschool group (I can't find her link anywhere!)  With a love of science and nature, I've wanted to do something like this for a while, and now I've got the framework to make it work! 

We will be meeting at a different nature park each time for a laid-back and child-led time to enjoy the outdoors (can those two descriptions be used in the same sentence?!)  There will be a loose topic for each visit and relevant library books to help with any "research".  The kids can share supplies and ideas and encourage the natural love of learning.

This blog will be used to post the stories and pictures of our findings during our meetings.  I hope to be able to post our drawings when we get them scanned too.  I will do my best to try and find out what kind of animals & plants we find and give their proper name - and maybe even a link to more information.  If you notice a mistake, please let me know!

I hope you enjoy!