CoOp at Ft.Worth Botanic Gardens

Mrs. Deb hosted CoOp this week, & organized a trip to the Ft. Worth Botanic Gardens & the Native Texas Forest Boardwalk.

We parked the cars & met at the entrance to the gardens. Mrs. Deb is always so creative with her recycled materials, and today was no exception!

She created some awesome, fun binoculars for everyone using toilet paper tubes & yarn. These were a HUGE hit, and the kids loved using them all along our walks to look at things!

All along the boardwalk, there are interactive displays & lots of informational signs. It's hard to believe this whole location is free! There were displays about trees, leaves, even a display with bird eggs in boxes with a guessing game to find the Mommy bird. I would have expected to pay for something this educational!

Walking on the log path

Answering the question: "Do trees poop?"

The holes in this tree were made by the sapsucker bird. What a lot of work to make all those holes with your beak!

Reese & a friend at the Bird Sounds interactive display. If you pushed a red button, a bird sound would come down from speakers in the trees & you had to guess what type of bird made that noise. You could lift the flaps to see if your guess was right. The owl sound was really neat!

A big leaf Reese was excited to find

A hot day calls for Icee Pops! Mrs. Deb thinks of everything. I think everyone ate their fair share of yummy icee pops on a warm morning.

When we stopped to eat icee pops, Mrs. Deb took some time to talk with everyone about trees. One interesting topic that got lots of answers was whether or not trees were alive. We talked about what trees need to live, & Reese went into a story about bees & pollination & how they can sting you. Here, he's showing how the bees sting. So dramatic!

All along the path, there were also fixed looking tubes, which were pointed at different items of interest along the forest floor. There were little signs at the bottom of the looking tubes telling you what to find, such as raccoon dens & damage on a tree from lightning. Reese asked Mrs. Deb to lift him up here.

Here's Reese looking through another looking tube.

If you've got water coming up out of the ground, you can almost bet that 4 year olds will eventually get wet. Everyone started out using their hands, then Reese decided to step into the water. I warned him that if he got wet, he had to stay wet until we left. Of course, he didn't care, & just got completely wet!

And if you're already wet, why not just lay down on top of the fountain?!?

Lucky us, there was ANOTHER fountain just steps away! This one had a big bowl on the top which Reese & Emma Rae loved splashing in with their hands. Is that a botanical gardens faux pau?

Splash, splash, splash! These two were completely soaked from head to toe when they were done here!

After our fun morning of hiking, learning, & splashing, we headed back to the entrance for a yummy picnic lunch together.