Challenges 3 and 4 for week 1

I think the local birds know we're up to something.

I dried Islas hands in the bathroom came out and there was a bird in my kitchen. I totally shat it. So did the bird. Daddy Nicolson casually ignored me seeking his bird catching skills 😂😩 he's "working from home" but so am I. This could have justified him coming to at least laugh at me and see the beautiful baby bird albeit briefly. The wee bird just flew out as I am clearly turning into Snow White or the Disney Princess in Enchanted.

Then the scrubbing began. Sigh.

Challenge 3 was all about going on a nature walk and seeing what we could see.

We saw lots of red admiral butterflies and small white butterflies with orange bits on their wings and young bumble bees just hovering around. We weren't fast enough with the camera for pictures. The butterflies went super high and we're almost dancing together.

Our nature walk kept us busy but the litter still makes me a bit upset people don't know what they have or really appreciate it.

I think I'll order a litter picker and start filling a bag every time we go to the woods. Every little helps.

After that we got home and got to work on our sensory challenges. We played bat tig which just descended into giggles and when I was the bat I was so nervous I walked right into the trampoline. 😂🦇

Next was the nature's potions 🐰🎉
After lunch Bruce and isla set to work making the most nature inspired potion with conditioner, water, bicarb of soda, bits of leaves and flowers, all kinds of paint and flour. Made absolute mirk! 😂 It was a good activity to try cos my wee lad is tactile defensive and won't touch anything slightly wet unless it's meant to be wet like a bath or a swimming pool. He was more than happy to stir it but isla got right in there. She was enjoying it so much then we had to do a quick dash to the toilet 😂 spraying paint everywhere 😂. Safe to say I cleaned a lot from us both.

🤦‍♀️ I don't even have a photo of the mankiness of her cos my hands were COVERED 😂🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️

Next activity was Nature's camera and one of my favourites. I think we'll take the camera with us quite often during the project it's fun. It cuts off your peripheral vision the way we made it and let's you focus only on the front part of your vision. It's a strange sensation. we saw some birds and bees in the garden and a family of pigeons.

Then the kids relaxed in the gsrden in the paddling pool while I stared into the abyss and watered my wee vegetable garden. Then blissfully unaware of how manky I had gotten I went to the shop for ice lollies and some dinner and cashier said you've been busy today then wi the weans?
Of course.

The post pandemic plan of me just shutting my eyes in a glamping pod after a firepit or chilling out in Aviemore sounds so super dreamy. Laugh is.... I'll end up taking the kids cos I'd miss them too much 😂tomorrow's plan is to do den building in the park!

Challenge 2- learning about John Muir

DISCOVER 

"Every walk in nature one receives far more than he seeks"

John Muir

Jess sent us a lovely wee certificate  ecause we had made a start to the John Muir Award which was a lovely thing to get us in the zone! 

Today is Earth day so we kind of missed John Muir day by a day but we just got on with the challenge.

We downloaded a story off of twinkl.co.uk (a teachers resource site) to put in the correct order and learn about the man himself. And some quotes and mindfulness colouring in to talk about and colour in. 

The kids were most impressed upon by the fact John Muir lost his eyesight in a factory for a while after an accident at work (Claim!) when his eyesight got mended this helped spur on his passion for the outdoors because he was so grateful to be able to appreciate his wild places once again.

We looked at lots of photographs of Dunbar, where he is from and of emigration in the big ships to America. We looked at photographs of Sierra Mountains and Yosemite National Park which he had a hand in setting up. There was then the I. Possible sounding 1000 mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico. 5 miles knackers my kids out. We found a blog of a couple, the Redings following in his footsteps. 

Www.Rentaramblingnaturalist.Ws/muir.Htm

 We had a listen to the Mexican national anthem. 

Then we had a look at the John Muir Way route video on the Internet which was a brilliant video and clearly a LOOOOONG trip.

Www.Johnmuirway.org

We also looked at photos of John muir camping with Theodore Roosevelt and talked about what  a President is and where he lives in the USA and had a relaxing afternoon colouring some famous quotes by John Muir

John Muir Family Award

So me and the fam have signed up to do the John Muir Family Award.
Week 1
We've been finding it difficult to decide on where our wild place should be. We love our local Park where there's a particular tree Bruce and Isla love to climb and go on stick hunts, conker hunts and bug hunts- but we recently discovered Mansionhouse Wood right across from the Commonwealth graves at the foot of Hallhill Road coming down from Barlanark. Its a short distance to get there but nice woodland although small. We went on a nature hunt in Mansionhouse Wood and found ferns! Jurassic plant species. This discovery due to my sons love of dinosaurs gave him an incredible burst of joy and imagination. He made up fairly plausible dinosaur reasons for why there were so many felled trees. Clearly trexes knocked down the trees 😂❤️❤️❤️
Sadly the amount of litter utterly ruined a brilliant den building area so my kids couldn't play there I was afraid there would be needles or dangerous or hazardous litter.