Back to nature walks

Blog catchup. We LOVED this nature walk but it makes me sad because it's starting to feel too cold for too many more nature walks. We'll try to squeeze in a few and maybe get some snow walks in, but don't think that's going to happen too often.

This bridge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s. The kids had fun but wanted to go down the side and explore closer to the water, so we hiked on down.

On our way down, Alex made a discovery. Can't tell what it is or remember what she was excited about, but observing is exactly what these nature walks are all about.

The most exciting part about this walk was the fact that it turned our textbook science day into a hands on experience. Our current schedule is one day of textbook science with our lapbook and one day of nature walk for science. (The other days we do 2 days of history and 1 day is our field trip day-which is sometimes science related.) Mon. had been our first textbook science day for the year and it had been bad. I'd waited til quiet time thinking that it would work better without Alex or Calvin around. Well, it had already been a long day so adding another half hour of discussing science and listening to mommy read to them on the couch was just too much and I didn't get anywhere near as much accomplished as I'd hoped. (Since then, I've learned that it works a lot better as long as they have something to color while I'm reading. I usually print off some coloring pages I quickly find online at least somewhat pertaining to the topic. Water animals have been some favorite coloring pages here.) Anyways, even though it had been a rough textbook day, we'd talked about zooplankton and phytoplankton (I know, I know. You've got these boring images of sitting at a school desk copying down the definitions to these words and never really understanding what they mean. You just need to remember the definition to pass the test. ... Or is that just my memory.=) Anyways, we're looking in the water of the Spokane river and Andrew notices the algae. Phytoplankton. So how did it get there? The current of the river carried the plankton until it landed on the rock and started to grow. It was an amazing lesson and brought our textbook to life.

There's all that phytoplankton (plankton is an animal that drifts in the water to get from place to place. Phytoplankton is plantlike because they use the sun to make their food while zooplankton is more like animal because they need to eat to get food.)

After exploring the water, we crossed the bridge and enjoyed a dirt trail.

and enjoyed the views.

We spotted a huge osprey. A friendly birdwatcher helped us identify him correctly. We got to watch him swoop down to the water to catch some food. Too fun.

My new favorite quote is "Treasure the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less." This walk was a good reminder of why I homeschool and how much fun it's supposed to be. When you bring learning to life, it makes so much more sense and will stay with you forever.