Beech Creek

Today the kids and I headed out pretty early (well, sort of) for Beech Creek state park. It was a short drive to loverly scenery. We started our day of 3 classes with a class on plant observation. The kids each had a sheet to record information about a native Ohio plant they were to study.

Heading out to observe the Spiderwort

Amy supervises the boys' information recording.

Nate, Ruth and Grace were old enough to go it alone.

Can you hear me now?

More observations

Something has clearly caught Byron's attention

Frankly, I'm amazed that he can see a thing as close as his smooshes that magnifying glass to his eye...

The elusive Dragonfly I chased around

Nature walk and observing ferns

These were pretty, but would have looked a lot prettier if I could figure out how to focus on the flower and not the weeds beside it. /sigh/

Davie and I liked these Black-eyed Susans

Class 2 with Mr. C. He pulled out all sorts of plants with obvious names like Purple Cone Flower to see if the kids could guess the names just be using their powers of observation. Dave was close with Pink Cone Flower.

Fanning the lemony scent over to the kids

We split into 2 groups and the big kids went with Mr. C to look over the flora and fauna of the train display

While the wee ones had a lesson on native Ohio plants from Aunt Carolyn

Each kid took a turn identifying a flower and putting a label under it.

Let me think...

The boys showing off their root vegetables. Each kid dug up a root vegetable and then tried to identify it.

Replanting the roots for the next kids to dig up.

Checking out the worms in the compost bin

This was cool! It was full of seed samples in tubes.

The kids bombarded Mr. C with "What's this!?!" almost faster than he could answer.

Class 3-Art Project: Leaf Rubbings

First, we rubbed chalk over the papers for background color

Next we rubbed over leaves to leave an imprint on the paper.

No, that's not bad makeup, but compulsive face scratching.

We took time to enjoy a picnic lunch together. Amy is tormenting the kids with thoughts of cookies.