Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Fall Nature Walk




Long ago, when I first started thinking about science for my science kid, I talked with my friend Melisa. She had told me, "science for kids is easy. Just take them for a walk!" (I use the quotes loosely because as I said this was a long time ago.

Well, Melisa, you're right. Certainly the best way to get kids interested by science at this time of year is by looking at our ever changing world. So today Maddie and I braved the elements (50 degrees, rough --I know!) and took a nature walk.

We focused on three things: nuts/seed pods, leaves, and falling asleep in the stroller after a really long walk.




Along the way we also found this. One of our neighbors just cut down a tree. And there was a seed pod stuck in it! Score!

We collected some cool looking leaves. I'm not gonna lie -- I found the cool leaves. Mads is a big fan of dead leaves. This is a bouquet she gathered on a recent trip to Niagara-On-The-Lake:



Cute, but dead.

After our collecting was done we got to do some playing with the app Leafsnap. It's supercool! Just snap a photo of a leaf on a piece of white paper and upload.




Leafsnap will tell you what kind of tree it is. Again, I'm not going to lie. This science project was more for me than my daughter.


Here's a sampling of what we found. Here's what Maddie did while I leafsnapped:



Maddie did get involved at looking at nuts and seeds.


She helped sort acorns, chestnuts and seed pods. Then she took them someplace, saying she had taken all the money. Maybe she'll go into business. I hope she chooses that over shopaholic-ing.

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