We took a break from schoolwork to explore the world outside. Jeremiah was very impressed with the neighbor's magnolia leaves blowing into the yard.

He liked that they were thicker than the leaves from our maple and oak trees...



We also talked about how velvety they felt on the backside...


We discussed how the top side looks leathery when viewed up close and had a mosaic look...


I liked the contour of the leaf...


The boys found some tiny acorns under our oak tree and so began a conversation about how we had two oak trees but had to take one out because it was damaged and how that led to less acorns in our yard (which is SO nice!). Touched on the fact that there were boy and girl trees but he's only in second grade so we didn't go too far into why we'd refer to them as boy and girl...

Some treasures from our little walk...


Joshua found some monkey grass near the bushes and was excited to point out "poo-pole fowas" to his big brother...


This isn't with my macro lens but I did try to get as close as possible...


Jey was not impressed with the flowers, he was too busy exclaiming, "I found an eagle feather!!!"

Which lead to a discussion of where eagles live and how big their feathers are and how this cannot be an eagle feather. He had fun speculating what kind of bird it must have come from. We talked about birds and their wings last week so it was great review to look at this closely and examine how some feathers are soft and downy and others are good for keeping the bird from getting wet. Jey was very interested in how the feather was designed to help it fly.






Ahhh... homeschooling at its finest. :)