Week 7 Nature Scavenger Hunt for Families and my week 6 photos

Did you enjoy exploring with you senses this week? Was it easier or harder then you expected? I am falling behind in my own scavenger hunt. We have spent a lot of time outside but mainly at the beach or out on the river. We have had very minimal time exploring so my pictures this week are limited. 

As the summer winds down there are so many of the overall bonus's that I had great plans on exploring this summer but time is disappearing (sadly)! Where has the summer gone? Next Saturday we are going to Nova Scotia for about a week so hopefully in our travels there we will be able to accomplish some of our overall tasks as I know this week will be busy planning for our first big trip with the girls in the plane and I am not sure how much time we will get to explore this week. There is a lot of planning involved for this first big trip.

What will be doing this week? This week we will focus on certain miscellaneous items of natural beauty. 

Remember to upload all your photos by Aug 17th with the hashtag #2014naturehunt and the date your picture is for as well as a description of your picture to help me award points more easily.


Aug 11th: A Fossil that you found outside while exploring 20 points
Aug 12th: A Feather 5 points (5 bonus points for every different colour feather you find...the main colour in the feather will be counted as the colour...for ex a seagull may have white, grey and black. If the largest portion of the feather is white, it counts as white and can not count as grey or black)
Aug 13th: A Mushroom 5 Points (20 points if you can identify it)
Aug 14th: WILD animal tracks you discover while out exploring 20 points (20 bonus points if it's not bird tracks)
Aug 15th: An intricate spider web 10 points (10 bonus points if the spider is at home and/or another 10 bonus points if it's an ORB spider web)
Aug 16th: A birds nest 5 points
Aug 17th: HUG the tree with the largest circumference you can find 10 points (10 bonus points if you tell us your trees circumference, 20 bonus points if you need two people to touch hands around it, 30 bonus points if you need three people to touch hands around it, 40 bonus points if you need four or more people to touch hands around it)

WEEK7BONUS: Buy a seedling and plant a special tree in your yard. The choice of variety is yours but plant it where you can enjoy it for years to come. Show us a picture of you with your newly planted tree. 50 bonus points


Don't forget about the overall bonus's which may be uploaded at any time during the 9 week period:
EXTRA bonus 1: A family portrait with a waterfall 25 points
EXTRA bonus 2: Discover a cave 50 points
EXTRA bonus 3: Make art with natures bounty 25 points
EXTRA bonus 4: Go camping... show us your favourite experience while camping 25 points
EXTRA bonus 5: Explore a hiking trail and share with us some of the wonderful natural things you saw while hiking 50 points
EXTRA bonus 6: Use natural items (rocks, sticks etc) to spell the word for how being in nature makes you feel 25 points
EXTRA bonus 7: A family portrait at either a National Park or a Provincial or State park. Let me know at least one thing you learned while at this park  100 points.

As I mentioned above this week has been another week which has ended up being way busier then planned and the free time we had we spent at the beach and I don't always take my camera or phone for pictures so here are our (slightly pitiful) pictures for this week:

Aug 4th: Things in nature that feel smooth

The girls both said the sand was smooth.

as was the grass

and the feather

Aug 5th:  Things in nature that feel rough

Various tree barks

 Big boulder

Aug 6th: Things in nature that feel prickly

Sierra says these needles are prickly...(I neglected to get a picture of the thistles we saw!!!)

Aug 7th: Things in nature that are Camouflaged

OK So I cheated...I saw this moth last week but I am adding him here anyway as we didn't find anything camouflaged this week and since I am not participating for points I'm using it just to show you :)

Aug 8th: Things in nature that you hear...how does it sound?

We heard the wind. It sounded soft as it created very small waves, lapping on the lake.

We also heard the sounds of the bees buzzing on flowers while playing at the park.

Aug 9th: Things in nature that you smell...how does it smell?

These wild roses smelled very sweet.

Aug 10th: Things in nature that you can taste. Identify what it is and describe how it tastes

We found a patch of wild chives...Sierra said it tasted yucky and Aayla said it tasted yummy... we didn't find any blueberries, raspberries or blackberries which should all be available now.

They also tasted tree sap...Sierra said it tasted totally disgusting and Aayla just shrugged her shoulders.

WEEK6BONUS: Show us a picture of something you found interesting in nature this week. Tell us: Why was it interesting to you? Try to use all your senses to explore this item you found. Explain how your item feels, smells, tastes (if possible), looks and sounds. 50 bonus points

We have two pictures to share...

First is of a rainbow we saw while boating up the river towards home after a day at the beach/lake. It was interesting to the girls because it was a rainbow without rain. We couldn't touch the rainbow as it just went through our hands. It had no smell, we couldn't tastes it and it had no sound but it sure was fun to watch.

The next interesting this we saw this week was a young raccoon in the middle of the day. Again all we could do was to watch him so not a great example for using all our senses but you don't often get to see raccoons in the day and this little guy hung around on the ground for awhile before heading up into the tree.

Happy hunting for week 7 everyone!