Nature Hike with Grandma E

This morning I called my mom and invited her to come visit us for a walk and lunch. When she got here, we got into our coats and shoes and went for a walk around University Park and the old Vennard College campus.  It was just under 60 degrees when we headed out, so not too cold, but cool enough for the kids to wear their fun hats!

I'm trying to integrate "learning" into our everyday activities, so I printed off a hiking scavenger hunt sheet so that Laurel and Nicolas could find the items on the sheet.  I also hooked a little bag to the stroller to put our "nature collection" into.  Nicolas rode in the stroller until we got to the campus, then we let him out and let him run.  

Grandma and the kids

 Nicolas loves to roam around and check things out, so it was really nice to have a big open space to just walk around.  Both kids looked for any dropped leaves to walk through and crunch, and they both picked up a lot of sticks and leaves.  We found almost everything on our scavenger hunt sheet!

Here, Nicolas, let's go this way!

We spent about 1 hr 45 minutes on our walk!  Once we got home we ate lunch, said Bye to Grandma, then put Nicolas down for a nap.  While he was sleeping Laurel and I made some air dry clay, played a game on the computer, watered the tulip bulbs I just put into the garden yesterday, and ate some snacks.  Once Nicolas woke up, we got the clay ready, and pressed our "nature collection" items into the clay!  I thought this might be something that Nicolas would be able to help with, but he was not interested in squishing the clay, or in pressing anything into the clay...he spent most of the time banging a butter knife on the table.  But Laurel enjoyed it!  

UPDATE:  This air dry clay recipe did not work well.  The nature shapes did not imprint well, and half the pieces cracked while drying on the pan, not having been moved.  Guess I'll look for a new recipe or go with the old standard, salt dough.

The impressions from the leaves, acorns, and pine cones don't look quite as nice as I pictured in my mind (and saw on Pinterest, go figure).  We'll let them dry overnight and see if they are more impressive tomorrow after we paint them.  We poked holes in our impressions, so they just might go out as Christmas ornament presents this year!

After we finished with the clay, I had Laurel put all the items she found on her scavenger hunt sheet.  She was so proud of herself!

We found a yucca seed pod with all the seeds still in it!  Laurel enjoyed rattling it, and asked if we can plant the seeds in our garden.  I guess I need to look up how to grow a yucca plant from seed!

Confession: I couldn't find any pine cones during our walk.  But I had a decorative one (sparkles and everything) that we had used in an Autumn display, so I had Laurel "collect" that one.  Is that cheating?

I found nature!