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I got this video from my library yesterday! It is called My First nature Video and it is really neat! It has about 12 different hands on nature projects to do with children. It even shows children how to put together a nature journal and what kinds of things to put in it. The video shows exactly what materials you need and how to do each project. (Actually this video is in a series.) So I plan to see what other videos they may have as well. (Activities, Science, etc.)

Today we went to a Wildlife park. They had a children's wildlife program called Predator and prey.

The children had alot of fun playing hide and seek in teams. The teams were made of predators-those animals that hunt and prey those that are hunted. Each child had to decide what animal on his team he/she wanted to be. Then they would act like that animal and hunt or run from those hunting them.

Lexi liked hunting but did not like being hunted.  But they did enjoy themselves.

After this we went with some friends to Chick Fil A to eat and play in the air conditioned play place. It made for a very fun adventure today and we did some learning in the process!

We read through these 2 books today! I don't recommend books often but these are great! And I was able to order them from my local library.

The first is called Nature Journaling by Clare Walker Leslie.

This book has great ideas about how to start and continue a nature journal. I was facinated by it. It also has beautiful sketches and talks about teaching younger children to draw and journal nature.

The  2nd Book  is called  I Took A Walk  by Henry Cole. This book has beautiful illustrations an pull out page spreads. Inside each page spread it asks you to find things hidden. So you find camaflauged wildlife in the picture the way it might look in real life. My dc loved it and we learned about different kinds of plants, insects and birds we did not know before.

Well last week we ended the week with a trip and hike at the Nature Center and I really did not think anything could top that.

But On Monday we went to learn about Corn Snakes. We got to meet Wilbur. He is a very friendly corn snake. We learned that they do look similar to copperheads, but they are not poisonous. They eat mice, bugs, small birds, and small bunnies. They are called corn snakes because they look like Indian Corn on their bellies. It was really fun, imformative and neat to get to see this!

Then Today-Tueday we went to a program in the Smokey Mountain National Park called Slimy Salamanders. The local park rangers do this as part of the Jr. Ranger program. It you attend 3 classes you can earn a Jr. Ranger badge. (This was really really fun and we learned so much.) This had to be the best field trip of the summer. We plan to do some more of the Jr. Ranger programs over the next couple of weeks and I know I am more excited about it than my children are!

First we learned that The Smokey Mountains are the #1 place in North America to find Salamanders. (It is even known as the Salamander Capital of the world.) There are over 30 different types of salamanders in the smoky mountains alone. The one we caught was called a Dusky. (Must be pretty common as alot of people caught that same kind.)

Salamanders are amphibians and breathe through their skin. One of their defense mechanisms is that they can lose their tail when being pursued by racoons and other predators. (So if you ever pick up a salamander-don't pick it up by it's tail, because it will lose it's tail, and then when a racoon finds it, it will grab the salamander by the body-since it won't have a tail to grab.)

We also learned that they can be found in small streams under rocks. But you have to be careful turning over rocks because other critters like to hide there too.

Zip lock baggies are great for catching them, just don't use too much water , because you can drown the salamander. Also you want to put the salamander back as near to where you found it as possible.

The SugarLand's visitor center also has a museum with alot of Tennessee Wildlife information in it.

The video above shows some of the pictures of our adventure with Wilbur and the Salamanders.