Gram and Nora's Excellent Adventure

October in Minnesota: the evenings are getting cooler, daylight is getting shorter and the leaves are turning incredible shades of red and gold. My little granddaughter spent the day with me. To entertain her, and myself, we went on a fall scavenger hunt in our back yard. We brought along a magnifying glass, which came in very handy, a bag (with handles) to collect our loot, and a roll of tape to make a "nature bracelet." I put together my list of goodies to hunt for last night. Thought I'd share it here with you:

FALL  SCAVENGER HUNT 2012
*  Find an oak leaf. (We have 2 enormous oak trees and thousands of oak leaves).
*  Find the smallest yellow leaf you can find. (We have several Honey Locust trees, so this was easy).
*  Find an animal sign…a track, a feather, a bone, etc.  What animal was here? (We found a feather).
*  Find some rough bark. (We used the magnifying glass and got an up-close look at the oak bark).
*  Find a pinecone and a pine needle. (And yes, we have a wonderful old pine tree beside the garage).
*  Listen for the sound of birds.  How many different birds do you hear?
*  Is it windy?  Close your eyes and feel the wind on your face.
*  Make a nature bracelet. Wrap a piece of masking tape around child's wrist, sticky side out. Add leaves, etc. (This was a blast. We used waterproof medical tape since I couldn't find the masking tape. It worked great and looked pretty cool, covered with yellow Locust leaves).

When we came inside we made a collage, gluing some of our favorite finds onto construction paper.  This was a spectacular way to spend a beautiful fall morning.

Please note: In the middle photo, Nora is modeling her "nature bracelet." The last photo is her collage!