The trees were so colorful!
And here is a cure picture of Reagan and Avery helping Jameson with his leaf sorting activity. He is sorting felt leaves by color, he had trouble at first but got it in the end.
Our lesson this week was about the White House, including a White House quiz and a discussion of what character traits makes a good leader. The kids insisted we begin learning about George Washington so we read about him as well. I'm really excited about this president study, I think it will be a great way to study American History, a topic I'd been floundering with how to approach for awhile now, since our other history curricula Story of the World and First Timeline are more world history focused. I think the boys are going to love the president focus!
He also noticed that when he swung a basket full of stuffed animals over his head the animals stayed inside, as long as he swung it fast enough. This led to a discussion of forces (I'm hoping Grandpa Jon can weigh in with a more accurate explanation than I managed to give). Avery made the connection that this was the same reason he didn't fall out on the upside down loops of the Demon rollercoaster at Great America. 
We've also been reading a lot about space, the earth, and volcanoes as a follow up to the First Great Lesson using the resource list from Miss Barabara's Great Lesson pages. I'm planning to have the boys write research reports as a follow-up.
On Friday the kids have a gym class with our homeschool group. This week they had running races. Reagan ran a mile and came in 8th place. He got a prize ribbon and was very proud. Avery ran half a mile and finished 11th. And Mary ran a quarter mile (her age group 5 and under did not keep time). They all had fun, and I was somewhat surprised they could run that far! 
I just discovered a really cool blog called Handbook of Nature Study that features weekly Outdoor Hour Challenges. Just the motivation I need to get nature study going again around here!
If you look closely at the little specks in the middle of the plate, they are actually tiny seeds with little silken parachutes, ready to catch the wind!
Reagan took photos of the seeds he found rather than collecting them, here is one of his finds:
Jameson even participated inadvertantly, we found prickly seeds clinging to his shirt and pants!
On Tuesday we went for a nature hike instead of our Chemistry lesson because the fall weather demanded it! The kids also had fun catching crickets. They built a house for them out of Duplos, but I wasn't crazy about crickets hopping all over my house so we built a more suitable habitat for them following the directions in Pet Bugs: A Kids Guide to Catching and Keeping Touchable Insects. The book also had some interesting information about crickets, such as the fact that only the males chirp which answered Avery an Mary's heated debate about whether the crickets were boys or girls.
On Thursday our Gospel reflection time was particularly exciting. We read Matthew 21: 33-43. The phrase "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;" led to some wonderful demonstrations of the importance of a cornerstone, using blocks to build walls that were then knocked down by removing the "cornerstone".
Jameson did all the puzzles I have out for him: shapes, animals, and this "puppy" puzzle.
We also did our weekly nature study. This week we learned about seeds. The boys collected some and we compared the different types. Some had fluffly little parachutes to catch the wind and some were prickly and stuck to Jameson's shirt!
