Last week marked the end of our home school “winter session”. California is just too green right now to not move into the more “spring related” projects. We decided to head up to the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens and spend some time looking for the things we had studied this winter like mushrooms, evergreens, worms, moss and lichens. I had created a little card to remind them of everything and I also created a paper with a special winter nature hunt : Something they saw, something they heard, something they smelt, something they touched. We also did a little “winter pond” nature study. I made them a little labeled guide, but there wasn’t much to look at this time. We will revisit the pond each season. We had a wonderful time exploring the gardens and then had a fun winter time snowman snack. The girls also got their badges from this winter too. We’re excited to begin the spring session!