Seasonal Tree Study-spring

We went today to the Botanical Gardens and spent all our time (a few hours) at the Japanese Gardens. I asked the boys to each pick a tree to do our seasonal study on. Noah and Joshua picked trees at the garden and David chose the crape myrtle in our front yard. Noah's is first, then Joshua's, then David's.





We took pics of the trees, and then we went home, they drew them in their nature journals. I have included the pics from their nature journals below.

Outdoor Challenge #4

Today we (including daddy) went to the Moss Rock Preserve in Hoover. We spent a little over 2 hours on the trail. The twins got tired, but they did well!... and especially liked the "big wocks and watie" (big rocks and water)


The boys had chosen insects to study, but they noticed so many things, and Josh especially noticed things he had been learning in botany, and pointed out an unrolling fern, which we had discovered last week at the Botanical Gardens. The boys saw some bees, but not many other bugs. They did notice several spider webs, though. They were very excited to discover several "caves", and we got a picture in one.


We noticed several types of moss, they noticed the blooming oak leaf hydrangeas, and even found some minnows in the stream. All in all, it was a great family excursion, even if we did not make it to the official "boulder fields"; a place where lots of rock climbers spend their time. We have been there before but went in by a different route this time, and did not make it because we had hungry stomachs and tired toddlers.





The last picture we are going to follow up on; it was a dead log across the trail with tons of lichen on it.

Outdoor Challenge #3

Today is St. Patrick's Day, so it is very appropriate that we spend time in nature seeing God's handiwork. The Irish/Celts were very aware of and "in tune" with God in nature. I read the boys the Lorica of St. Patrick, an awesome prayer, and we headed out to the Botanical Gardens early.

The first thing we saw was a patch of beautiful tulips and we took a few close ups.



Then, we went to the right of the fountain...


...and headed toward the hothouses, but they were closed for repairs, so we went a little past it and got sucked in at one small plot where we took tons of pictures of different stages of a flower (?) opening up. (the pictues somehow loaded backwards, the next to last one is first of the bloom, and then as it opens, and lastly how the petals fall off, and what is left was in order very last).







We spent a lot of time walking around and observing tons of flowers, trees, bugs, worms,and the first bees of the year. Then, after looking at the lenten roses, we stopped by some tulips to draw in our nature journals.(Again, the pics are kinda backwards). Josh drew all the different kind of leaves he had seen (because they are studying different vein patterns in leaves and he found all the different types, so he was very excited.) david drew the tulip, and Noah drew a tree that had split and then grown back together. We had a wonderful time.






The first picture is one Joshua took, he was noticing the hair-like things on the stem of this bush.

Last but not least was my favorite group of tulips- purple for Lent!