Weekly Wrap Up - Exploring Nature

Last week I said I wouldn't be doing a weekly post, and yet, here I am.  At least this week I have cool photos to share!  My brother and sister-in-law flew in from Texas over this past weekend, and we took them on some sightseeing excursions.

Our first day we went out chasing waterfalls.  I found one small water fall that I never knew existed just outside of our town, and so that was our first stop.

We traveled further south in our journey and visited Crabtree Falls, then drove north along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  If you endeavor to go to Crabtree Falls, take a barf bag for the ride, depending on the route you take.  If at all possible, take the Parkway to Route 56.  Lindsey was not a happy camper, but thankfully she was able to hold it together (or at least choke it back).

In the first waterfall photo above, if you follow the line of "white" up to the top of the photo, that is all water coming from the top.  There's a 2.5 mile trail that you can hike up the side of the mountain to get to the top, we chose to enjoy the beauty from the bottom.   Interestingly enough, as you walk up the trail toward the platform we stood on, there was a sign that said 23 people have died on these rocks, so please stay on the trail and pay attention.

Back in the car, and up to the Parkway we go.  It's still colder in the mountains and trees are still bare, but the views are always gorgeous.

As you can see, Lindsey is the more advernturous, and Olivia is NOT a fan of heights.  I did this great photo op of Liz, as if she was falling (she's actually standing on a hug boulder below the one I'm on).  But it still has that  "help me brother" vibe from Lion King.

Day two of our adventures, we headed in totally different direction and ended up at Natural Chimneys.  The park was "technically" still closed for the season, but the gate was open, so we took that as a "Hey, ya'll come on in here."  Ahem.

We found caves to explore, and a tiny little bat habitat.  In the next to last photo, if you look closely you'll see the family on the observation deck at the top of the formation.  In the last photo, I'm the little blue dot by the fence line.

We also went to a little park in a local town and crossed their swinging foot bridge (I forgot to take photos), walked their nature trails and checked out their man made waterfall.  

The weather was perfect.  It was a great couple of days of exploring.

Exploring the Wetlands

I’m trying to incorporate more nature study and outdoor learning opportunities this year.   We’ve already been camping and will hopefully get to go again before the cold weather sets in.

We went on a little morning excursion to a local wetlands area.   It’s been pretty dry here, so the wetlands weren’t very wet.  We’ll try again in the fall after the rains set in.   We were able to find some of the mosses, fungi and liverworts that Lindsey has been studying in science, so it was not a lost cause.

We went off the beaten path and found some old relics hidden in the underbrush, like this old car.

This old irrigation system was pretty interesting.   The rock lined walls have partitions built every so often.   The partitions can be removed to allow water to flow through the walls to get from the pond (at the top of the photo) to be other side of the property.

The elevated pathways were lovely, and the views were great.

We followed the sounds of flowing water until we came to the underground spring made it’s way above ground.  As you can see, it’s very dry here too.

If you look REALLY closely in the bottom left corner of this next photo, you can see some minnows that were stranded in the shallows.

The signage along the trail said the wetland area is home to beavers, black bears, heron, snapping turtles, foxes, possums, bull frogs and a host of birds and insects.   On this trip all we saw were some crazy squirrels and lots of swallowtail and monarch butterflies.   Hopefully we’ll have more luck running into animals next time…except for the bears.

Enjoying the Great Outdoors

After much planning, rearranging of schedules, family emergencies and finally having to skip ballet lessons (on a holiday no less), we finally made our way to the great outdoors for our first camping trip.  Since this was our first, and we weren’t sure how well the sleeping in a tent would go, we opted for a one night trip this time.

Our choice of locations was amazing.   There was a pond for fishing, a beautiful river for exploring and wading in, and lots of bunnies to romp with.

We were all tired and ready to relax by dinner time.   We did the traditional hot dogs and s’mores over the open fire for dinner…and snacks into the wee hours. 

We sat around for hours listening to the night sounds, finding various constellations and chatting about history (of course).  Somewhere around midnight we all turned in for a well deserved sleep.  Air mattresses WILL be purchased before our next trip, ahem.

The morning brought a soft dew, bad hair, a stiff back and a herd of bunnies…and bacon.   Cooking over and open fire was fun, and tasted SOOOO good.

After breakfast we walked out to the river to explore.   The views are stunning.  The water was cold and a real “wake me up”.  We taught the girls how to skip rocks and looked for fresh water clam shells.

It was a great first camping experience, and I’m sure we’ll be going again soon!

Mississippi River Mini-Unit

We’re currently in the middle of our Westward Expansion unit study.   Since getting to the west meant crossing the Mississippi, I thought this would be a great time to do a mini-unit on the Mississippi River.

We studied the pathway and history of the Mississippi using the book Minn of the Mississippi as our guide.  (FYI, there is some evolution in the book, so you may need to skip some sections.)   Since Minn was a snapper turtle, we added turtles to our mini unit, learning about their life cycle and diet.  Isn’t this turtle puppet just too cute?

During our map work, we learned about geographical/river terms such as bayou, meander, levee, confurence and delta.  The girls labeled each of the states touched by the Mississippi, and also major rivers and tributaries.

We studied the water cycle using these cute printables from Kidzone.  

We created steam with our tea kettle, then held a frozen piece of plastic over the kettle to create condensation, and of course we used the 16 inches of snow that fell overnight to explain precipitation, grins.

Books we used:

Minn of the Mississippi; by Holling Clancy Holling
A Place for Turtles; by Melissa Stewart
Geography Fact Files, Rivers; by Many Ross
Land Shapes, Rivers: by Brian Knapp
Mississippi River, A Journey Down the Father of Waters; by Peter Lourie
Down a River; by Carole Telford
Mississippi; by Diane Siebert
The Mississippi America’s Mighty River; by Robin Johnson
The Mississippi River; by Allan Fowler
Exploring the Mississippi River Valley; by Rose Blue and Corinne J. Naden
The Mighty Mississippi, The Life and Times of America’s Greatest River; by Linda Vieira
Huckleberry Finn; by Mark Twain