Wild Explorer Wednesday~ {First Day of Fall}

Today was the first day of Fall so we celebrated with books~

 Exploring outside searching for fallen leaves~

 Spending time in the 'hideout'~

 And creating art on the breezeway~

 We each shaved fall colored crayons onto wax paper then folded to melt with the iron.
Once cooled, we traced leaf shapes and cut out beautiful fall leaves~

 Then we read Leaf Man and created the cutest leaf creatures~

 We laminated them and added to our Art Story Notebooks~

Happy Fall Y'all!!!

Wild Explorer Club~

We have jumped on the Wild Explorers Club bandwagon~

 I am at a point of homeschooling where I need some things to be easy and planned for me~

 Wild Explorers is an online program that allows families to complete fun assignments and earn nature badges.
We get a video and assignment dropped into our inbox each week~

 Our first week we were to pack an explorer backpack (Done)
and this week explore nature around you~

 We of course slipped into our rain boots and headed down the path to the lake
where we found a receding shoreline, arrowheads, and caterpillars!
When our snacks were gone and everyone was hot,
we headed inside to watercolor our outing~

 I printed our welcome letter, assignments, and a photo of our fun then created a notebook~

It will take us two years to make it through the whole thing.
Wonder if we will make it that long?
The kids LOVE it for now and so do I!

A Shakespeare Nature Walk~

To begin our day today, I placed pattern blocks on the coffee table for brain training while I read history to them.

I recently purchased a book of How to Teach Your children Shakespeare.
This was the first day I opened it up and within the first chapter, memorized our first line.
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows."
We discussed each word, defining them, and SJ said, "Mom! We have a bank at the lake!"
Everyone grabbed their coat, we ran to the lake to get a photo on our bank, and practice our one line of Shakespeare~

 EK took a wade to the dock. We looked for interesting things through the woods.
We pulled weeds in our tomato patch~

 We found beautiful flowers around our yard and picked them~

 Trees in our yard make wonderful places to play~

 After a great walk, we pulled our favorite flower books~

 Identified~

 and drew~

 Nature Walk Wednesday mixed with Shakespeare was a perfect match~

If you ask this crew!!!

Nature Walk Wednesday:

On Wednesday we try to take a Nature Walk after bible and scripture time.

Today I wanted to focus on birds, and how they are similar to airplanes since we are reading The Glorious Flight for FIAR.

I grabbed our copy of Aesop's Fables, and we headed out~

 We took a tray to sit on, then chose places all over our yard to sit listening to fables, info facts by EK, and chirping birds~

 It was cool to close our eyes listening for birds and practice our own whistling~

The birds SO loved the bird feeders we made back in January, so we gathered pine cones

to make more for our favorite bird tree~

 We came back in to read books, watch YouTube videos, and get a drawing lesson from SJ~

 From SJ's lesson, everyone was able to sketch a bird, color with pencils, add words, and paint~

{EK and SJ brought their pet birds to the table too :}

 I drew lines for words today, and it really made organizing their Art Story easier~

 SJ copied from a non-fiction book, and EK copied a passage from our chapter book The Other Side of the Mountain~

 All the stories were gorgeous, and today was laminating day~

Our Art Story binder is definitely a favorite book for everyone,

and Nature Walk Wednesday is definitely our favorite day because we also go to church tonight!!!

My Nature Loving Children~ {Nature Walk Wednesday}

We gathered around our table for Bible and prayer before heading out into nature for inspiration to draw and paint~

Everyone pulled on their rain boots and instead of me leading this nature adventure, they lead me! Back into the woods we went~

 They shared their hideout where they play Boxcar Children collecting trash treasures~

 They crossed logs and stood at the foot of the base of a tree that fell over in the wind~

 They scampered down a deep embankment into the creek~

 AND the scariest part for me was watching SJ walk across a fallen log covered in ferns {over the creek} to the other side AND back~

 She was quite proud and I was quite relieved!

They swung from vines and pointed out the back of our house~

 They showed me all the collections and  beauty in our backyard~

 We ended up at our big outside table to listen to a cute story Mr. Gummy's Outing~

While sketching and painting about our own.

We are SO thankful the weather is giving us beautiful springlike days outside!!!

"We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."    ~ Charlotte Mason

Nature Walk Wednesday~ {Acorns and Pumpkin}

Fall in Georgia is pretty awesome!

Cool and crisp in the mornings (jacket weather) and afternoons warm enough for short sleeves.

Today we grabbed our happy meal buckets and went exploring~

 We met in the hideout for bible time and everyone wanted to look for acorns.

Along the way we spotted some really cool webs which we have been reading about in science~

 Our oak trees only dropped small acorns so off to Memommy and Pop's we went~

 And she took us to trees that dropped HUGE ones~

 That we could paint along with leaves too~

(Making prints for our nature journals)

 Why stop there?

We carved our pumpkin Freddie too~

Everyone gave a suggestion for the Surprise face!

(Really cool hack idea was to carve from the bottom 

and made cleaning it out super easy!!!)

Nature Walk Wednesday~

Today we took the morning for a long Nature walk around our yard~

 And found SO many treasures~

We came back to display them on our trays~

and then sketch~

 Next we searched our guide books for species names and added to our pages~

Everyone did a fantastic job~

Look forward to more days just like this one!!!