Green Hour Challenge #3!

OK, so I have no camera (my brilliant self dropped it on the concrete patio outside, nice!) so yet again I will be unable to share pictures of our nature experiences.... hopefully my wonderful choice of words will bring a beautiful image to your mind!!

This week was different for us as I didn't go out with the intention of completing the challenge -- it was just natural for us, so I kept putting off writing this post, thinking I hadn't done it yet! My girls are 3 and 2 and contrary to what I read about this age, they do not like to draw. They aren't real artsy girls unless it involves finger paint, and that isn't really to paint a picture as much as making the colors all blend..... and a nice mess for mommy to scrub :-) So we did not do nature journaling this go-around, but here are our Nature Experiences from the week!

Sunday my DH and I, along with my parents, took the girls to feed ducks at the pond behind my mom's office. The girls squeeled with delight at this!!! They remembered that to have the animals come up to them, they had to be quiet and still.... I was so proud! They sat still and eventually the ducks felt comfortable enough to take the food right out of their hand!! They had so much fun watching the ducks and collecting the loose feathers on the ground! Then we loaded back into the car and drove to the local park. While walking to the playground, Jordan started pointing things out to me:

"Mama, look at the tree! Mama, look at the grass! Mama, look at those leaves and pinecones... and those pineneedles...look at the clouds!"

I guess I'm not doing such a bad job at this after all! We also pointed out the moss growing on the trees and took some home with us, along with sticks they found (one of which had several baby pine cones still attached, which I personally thought was really cool!) and flowers! We really enjoyed our time at the park and plan on going back as a family tomorrow for a picnic lunch and nature walk!

Today, we went for our neighborhood nature walk, but with the agenda of looking at all the construction going on. We told them before we left about the different stages of a house, how they have to begin with the most important part, the foundation, and then they make a frame with the wood, and then they put the bricks. It was a perfect day for our walk because in our little circle we were able to see a house waiting for the foundation to be poured, we watched another house where the foundation was being poured right in front of us (something that neither my husband or I had seen before), one that was being framed, and one that was getting its finishing touches on the brick! I went with the expectation that they wouldn't really "Get" any of it, but it would be a fun exposure to get them thinking, but they really enjoyed it! Jordan just wanted to sit there and watch the men build, but I think we made them a little self conscious!

While our nature walk today had a different agenda, observing nature was a natural part of it! We stopped several times to look at the flowers (we found some very large dandelions, which was exciting, and we told them that we had to leave it alone so we can see how much it will grow by the time we come next week!), to listen to the birds sing, and notice the sky above us (a beautiful bright blue with not a cloud in sight!). When we got back home, we looked at our bird's nest to see if there had been any changes, and then came inside. Jordan immediately said, "That was fun!" Cali enjoyed it, too, but was more of a quiet observer... but she definitely took it all in!

Yes, while it might not have fit all the intentions of this week's challenge, we still had a wonderful and successful time out in nature, and this challenge is continuing to motivate and inspire me. Thank you so much Barbara!!!