Nature Scavenger Hunt

Saturday was our fall nature scavenger hunt at Cox Arboretum.  

We had several families come.  They ate lunch together and all took a hike together.  

The students were thrilled to see each other and teachers outside of school.  From what I could see it seemed like the parents enjoyed getting to know one another as well. 

They loved looking at the water, the turtles, Zip (the working dog), ducks and much, much more!

Can you tell they found something really cool!

I explained the scavenger hunt before we began...

But we were interrupted by Zip the working dog.  The kids loved seeing Zip do his job but loved being able to just love on him with soft touches.  

Everyone on a nature scavenger hunt must use a magnifying glass!

We passed out the clipboards with a pencil attached and magnifying glass. 

We walked to the trail but we stopped at the lookout tower before going on our hike.  

If you look really hard you might be able to see Mrs. Garrabrant at the top of the lookout tower!

We decided to take the blue trail.  

One group got a little turned around when there was not a sign at a fork but we all made it!  

The blue trail was just over 1 mile long. 

Then the students got to work!  They all worked very well with their parents, friends, and siblings.  

We had a wonderful parent look up to make sure I was correct in saying this was a hedge apple.  

I brought it home to add it to our science exploration area of our classroom. 

We found many bird nests but this one was right at our level!

We found fossils, climbed on the fallen trees, heard the leaves crunch under our feet and even found water dripping from between the rocks. 

We found that Cox Arboretum has their own bee hives!

One of the students favorite parts was right at the end of the hike.  

The students loved chasing each other in the shrub maze. 

I'm thrilled at how fun our scavenger hunt was and how we were so lucky to choose a perfect day!  I would like to try to plan something for the families to do every quarter.  If you have any ideas for the winter season let me know!  

Thank you again for joining us on our scavenger hunt.  It was a huge success!

Mrs. Atkin