Outdoor Hour Challenge: Twig Study

Again I am late posting, but better late than never I say!

Our twig study nature walk seemed like an event that fought against me the entire way.

We set out on our walk on  amazing day in February that required no coats! (I truly watch my week's weather reports to decide which day to take our walk because I am a wimp and I want warm weather. What can I say.)

Our first stop was at the playground for a few minutes of swinging. That was when I determined than my "Angel" girl had not brought her clipboard, so I sent her back to get it while we waited.

So Angel got the clipboard, and we proceeded. The kids all had muddy feet now due to the conditions beneath the swings.

I am finding on my camera. I don't remember what happened that day that I would have failed to take photographs, but it is what it is.

We hiked across a residential field taking budding samples from neighborhood trees. We talked about the terminal bud, auxilliary buds, nodes, alternate leaves vs. opposite leaves, and leaf veins. We snipped and brought back samples to put in a jar of water to observe.

We walked a significant distance, found some benches, and I wanted the kids to sit down and sketch. That was when I found that: (1) When Angel went back to get the clipboard, she "didn't know" she needed to get a pencil, too, and (2) Number  3 lost his pencil while we were gallumping around looking at the trees. ::sigh::

So we headed back to the house to do our work that required pencils. The nature study really was successful, but abbreviated. I wanted to be able to spend more time outside for the kids, but not having pencils made this day feel like little more than a glorified walk, but that's just my bad attitude showing. The kids really did get some learning in, and it was beneficial.

We were delighted by the results a few days later!

I'm not sure (after this much time) how much sketching was done, and I haven't photographed the pages that we did work on (the kids worked on, that is...). The notebooks are not with me right now, so I cannot photograph them, so this entry is done. I really enjoyed this method of getting out into nature with a purpose. Thank you, Barb (Harmony Arts Mom) for you Outdoor Hour Challenges and your Twig Study focus!