A few trees from our neighborhood......aren't they beautiful? 

Today, we had planned to walk and look for wildflowers -- however, just down the road there was a lonely mushroom that got our attention.

It really isn't pink, must be the sunlight hitting it just the right way.

We took it home and drew/labeled it, discussed poisonous vs. nonpoisonous, and took the cap off to reveal the 'gills,' don't they look like pages from a book? So neat!

We painted with flowers!

Instead of brushes we used all parts of the flowers....

.....coneflowers, daisies, salvia, feathered grasses, prairie coneflowers, black eyed susans and roses.

The finished work.....

So we were wrong about the lima beans.

We thought the baggie with water & light would be the one to germinate. It was, however, the baggie with water & no light! My gardening hubby informed me that many seeds grow best that way.

Hmmm who knew?!

So we journaled what happened to each baggie.

The one with water and light, the kids said it smelled like the ocean! Well, my oldest son did, one of my daughters said it smelled like rabbit pee!! ICK!

My oldest son, Kaden, decided he wanted to see if the beans would grow faster in soil, so he planted lima beans and they now have a home on my counter.

Today we had a great time with lima beans!

I soaked some over night in water so the kids could see what happens. They recorded the differences between the dry beans and the soaked beans. They got to peel off the seed coat and split them in half. Of course we drew them in our journals.

We then did an experiment with them. Using 4 baggies.

Baggie #1: water & light
Baggie #2: water & no light
Baggie #3: light & no water
Baggie #4: no water & no light

We placed lima beans in each baggie in a folded, pocket like paper towel. We either added water or not, depending on which baggie it was. The ones that will get light, we taped to the window, the ones with no light we placed in a box ~ the honey maid box. 

We will check back each day and record what's happening with them. We each wrote what we thought would happen -- which would grow, which wouldn't and why.

The kids are looking forward to what happens. They also wanted to put lima beans in a cup of water like I did -- so they have those on the counter.

We took our weekly nature walk with 6 other families today.

There's a deer in the brush in the above picture

Our drawings, in our nature journals,  from today's walk

PLANT YOUR SOCKS!

Take a nature walk with the kids and have them wear an old sock over one shoe.

When you get home, have them 'plant' their sock and see what grows!! 

Fall is the best time of year because a lot of plants are shedding their seeds at this time.

The kids are having a ball with their presses, in fact, right now they are busy pressing even more things!

Here is one of the girls' nature journal entries from this week ~ all things they have pressed.

Kaden is still working on his ~ filling up the page.

At the Home Depot Kids Workshop last Saturday the kids made leaf presses. We took an extra one home for River, he was too busy playing there to make one.

Do you guys go to the Workshops?

They are the first Saturday of every month; we've been going for almost 2 years now, and the kids really enjoy them.

The kids have already used them to press the last few flowers in dad's flower garden and a few leaves.

For our Nature Walk this week we took a trip to the zoo with friends.

Look at baby 'Timber' nursing from its mama.
The kids were amazed that the coat of the giraffe isn't as soft as it looks.

Dolly and Mimi ~ the resident elephants

Apparently this camel has had quite a day

And my favorite part -- the Austrailian Lorikeets!

Here's a short video of one taking a bath -- its at the end of the clip.

Here, one of the kids is feeding the Lorikeet nectar

This one next to Kaden on the bench is named Vanessa, she has only one leg. The zoo keeper was not sure why, possibly born that way.

Here's another short clip of the Lorikeets -- I love the sound of all the birds!