Learning to observe

We launched into science yesterday! And the first thing we are learning is how to observe. Well, I guess before that Jacob has to learn to keep the words "observation" and "hypothesis" straight, cause it will be confusing for everybody if I tell him to observe something and he is trying to form a hypothesis about it...

Since our work load is very light right now, I decided to take the kids to Beaver Lake this morning for some observing in the woods. It is a beautiful day, but as soon as we stepped into the woods it was cold! There was a very cool breeze blowing off the lake, and even though I brought jackets that made it a little hard for the kids to enjoy themselves. We walked through one and half trails despite the cold.

We learned how wild grapes can cause clearings in the woods and why that is an important part of the wooded community. The kids were very excited when they found one of those clearings on their own. Unfortunately, we didn't see any animals - Jacob blames that on the big noisy group of kids who were there on a field trip. He was more than a little irritated that those kids didn't know how to be quiet. Imagine, Jacob mad at someone for making noise!