Nature Study for Urban Homeschoolers ~ Week 4

We explored our urban park this week on a warm day in the mid 60's. Timothy (our oldest son) joined us this week. We are completely absorbed with Nutcracker rehearsals now, so I didn't have any goals for the nature study today. I told the kids to keep an eye out for squirrels. We counted seven squirrels. They were very busy collecting acorns and scurrying up trees.

Watching the squirrels got the children climbing trees. Every time I turned around, Dean was in a tree.

Then, Tim decided that he was going to jump to a concrete structure in the river. He wanted to look in the hole in the center of the concrete structure and see what was in it. He made it without getting wet but couldn't find a way back. After many jokes about bringing him food and blankets so he could live there, he decided to try and jump back to a slippery bank. He didn't make it and came out rather wet from the knees down!

Does anyone have any idea what this structure might be? There was nothing in the hole. It went straight down to the river (like maybe a pipe used to come out of it?).  We think it might be from the days when this land held a bleachery plant.

We wrapped up our nature walk by collecting several kinds of berries. We have not figured out what they are yet. 

We are pretty sure they are both poisonous. If we manage to identify them soon, I will come back and label the pictures.

Blessings, Dawn