Backpack Adventure

On Thursday we went to Cheekwood to pick up our scarecrow frame (more on that later, but we are making a scarecrow this year for the garden).  To make the drive worth it, I decided to do the "Backpack Adventure" with the kids.  So even though it was supposed to get up into the mid-90s, we picked up a backpack from the visitors center and in it are activities to do in different sections of the gardens.

The bag is a little big :)

Inside of the backpack was a map showing the six stops corresponding to activities in the workbooks.

There were also lot of supplies like markers, crayons, pattern boards, scissors, a magnifying glass, and more inside the backpack.

At the first stop the boys learned about the different parts of a flower.

Carter's Flower:

Rylan's Flower:

There was also a magnetic board with lots of flower pieces to make different flowers.

At the second stop the kids observed lots of dogwoods and then used the pattern boards to make their own dogwood tree.

Carter's Dogwood that he named "Carter":

Rylan's Dogwood that he named "Dusty" (from the movie Planes even though we haven't seen it yet):

Stop 3 was in the Howe Garden.  There the kids had to decide if different animals and insects are good or bad for the garden.  They have apparently been listening at their gardening class because they both knew all the answers!

There was also a butterfly mobile to make at this stop.

Rylan's Butterfly (which I ended up coloring for him):

Carter's Butterfly:

We skipped stop 4 because I was extremely hot and couldn't figure out how to get to that section of the garden with the double jogging stroller I was pushing the boys in and just gave up.  But we found some shade by the ponds and did the maze in the workbook that was for stop 4.

Even though the boys got to be pushed around, they were still super hot.

We found the snapping turtle in the upper pond (that's is nose sticking out of the water).

Since it was getting later and I really wanted the kids to take a nap (we still had speech, our last gardening class, and soccer practice that afternoon), we skipped stop 5 in the Japanese Garden and went straight to the sixth and final stop.

Here the kids got to decorate their own garden with flower stickers.

The boys had fun but if we do the Backpack Adventure again, we'll do it when it's cooler.  This past week was the hottest we've been all summer here and we sweated a lot!