outside the classroom

We had our first official taught by someone else adventure in homeschooling today! We left the house at 8:30 am for our journey to the other side of Sacramento to Orangevale. These are the woods of the park. I still am awed by the nature of northern California! Bruce Larson, Ranger Bruce came to just us 5 eager students (me being one). He brought an old bee hive he found in his recent journeys:
You can see the hive. This is one of 12 pieces he found that was growing inside a tree. He found it after a big wind storm that brought an old tree down...this was inside it! That alone was so cool to all of us..then he began showing us how it was made and pulled out:
It is from the nursery area of the wax comb..he pulled the top off the little hexagon and pulled out a baby bee that had never made it to the world. Just beautiful!
I had my handy dandy magnifying glass...and we all looked intently!
Then Ranger Bruce explained butterflies to us in ways that just held us captivated! Just as we began to grow tired of sitting and listening, he says now lets explore! oh the joy of it! off we went into the forest!
See the holes, they have acorns in them, put in by woodpeckers..they peck out the holes just enough and shove the acorn in, so it will attrack bugs that they can come eat...the squirrels see it as a buffet gold mine!We all tried to remove one, impossible without a tool to dig it out...they are in there!

Ranger Bruce showed us miner's lettuce, and edible plant that is like bean sprouts. The men that came west needed it to get vitamins. They were hunters for food, but needed to get some greens in them. Abby was devouring it...I liked it. Eric said he didn't want to try it without Ranch! ha ha
Always looking for photo ops with the 4 of them...the 5 I took of Anna trying to get up were beyond hilarious...look for in a scrap page soon!
It was a marvelous day...and we look forward to January to learn about the real Pony Express and the last golden spike of the transcontinental railway!