The Bee Tree and Septemberfest

Last week Riley and Cole did Five in A Row's The Bee Tree. We learned about everything from the life cycle of bees, to the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, to onomatopoeia, to analogies, and lots in between!

To finish off our book, I wanted to make some honey treats and go to a bee farm. I called a bee farm and found out they would be at Septemberfest. Septemberfest opened up a whole new experience for us! If you haven't been, it's free and amazing. They have all kinds of exhibits, living history actors, inflatables, and lots of other activities on the Governor's lawn. It was a great time!

Making Peanut butter honey balls


The bee exhibit at Septemberfest. They told us all about harvesting honey.

A chuck wagon!



Waiting in line to tour the Governor's mansion...

Their dining room

Their Oklahoma shaped swimming poolThe panhandle is a hot tub.

Tyler and George Washington Carver

Sawing logs
Everyone got to milk a cow!

Petting Kim Henry's dog
It was a great day!

Bat Caves!

Our final Planet Earth field trip! We finished studying caves a while ago, but just last weekend were able to do our field trip. This one was great fun because we not only got to go with friends, but most of our extended family went as well.
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This was on property that is owned by friends of David's parents. David explored these caves as a child. David's dad grew up just down the road from the property and spent his childhood exploring them as well. We did a lot of wading through creeks to get to our destinations!

The caves were long and narrow in some places!

Here we are after getting all the way through the first cave.

To say this was not a clean field trip would be a huge understatement.

Grace's OU headlamp.

Deciding where to go next...

Taking a roasted hot dog and s'more break!

The water cave...

It was a perfect day! We saw only a few bats, which was ok with me. We had so much fun exploring and experiencing REAL caves.

Mountains

We have been learning about mountains with our Planet Earth DVD. This week we wrapped up our research and papers with a trip with friends to the Wichita Mountains. We went to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It was great! They have a museum there that we weren't even expecting, and we did a lot of exploring.

lunch on the lake.

We found a log beavers had chewed on.

Mountain exploration!

Checking out the museum.

Riley and Cole did the Five In A Row book "When I Was Young In the Mountains" by Cynthia Rylant to go along with our mountain study. In the book the little girl talks about hearing a bobwhite. At the museum they had a stuffed bobwhite and you could push a button and hear its call. Score!

The story takes place in the Appalachian Mountains, so we learned a lot about them. I got an idea from the Five In a Row message boards to make this cake, complete with tiny chocolate Appalachians. I don't think any of us will ever forget where the Appalachian Mountains are! We are moved by chocolate, we are.

We also made a mural of the mountains and animals that live there.

Good times!