Outdoor Hour Challenges 1 & 2

As we already did the first two challenges earlier this month, I'm just going to combine them into one post. If I try to wait until I have time to post seperately about each one, I'll get hopelessly behind. Not behind on the challenges themselves, but on blogging about them.

Challenge #1
For the first challenge, we were simply to get outside for 10-15 minutes and spend time observing. Back inside, we talk about what we saw and decide on two things to investigate further. Our first day was a bit different. Observing nature isn't new to us. Formal nature study is. We went out, looked around, and commented on what we were seeing. I always find it interesting how ds and I notice different things. He keyed in on animal life, while I noticed plant life. We both however, noticed the Zebra Longwing butterfly, the dragonfly, and our resident Gopher Tortoise who he named Tortera (yes, he's a Pokemon fan).

We collected a few leaves for leaf rubbings -- from our Florida Red Maple, and one of our orange trees. We also picked a few Beach Sunflowers for pressing.

Challenge #2

We did the second challenge during Tropical Storm Fay. Though we're in an area where there was much flooding, we're thankful that all we got was a lot of wind and a decent amount of rain. There were questions to answer for Challenge 2, Using Your Words:

Use one word to describe something you heard -- toads
Use two words to describe something you saw -- toad eggs
Use three words to describe something you felt -- hot, strong wind

Not bad. I think we'll keep working on descriptions by returning to this challenge every now and then.