Dried up Mushrooms

We actually got to some nature study today. You know, the thing that is good in theory, that I'd love to do everyday, but never seem to get around to. We've been studying about the 5 Kingdoms in homeschool and had covered fungi last week. We checked out this neat book "Katya's Book of Mushrooms" and the kids begged to go to the woods and look for some mushrooms. So, since all the rain this week I was sure we'd find some. And we did. Three shriveled, decayed, dried out mushrooms. Ugh. Everyone was quite disappointed. I guess I'll have to go get some from the store so we can do the spore experiment. You set them out overnight on a paper and the spores will have fallen on the paper by the morning. Oh wait, the nature study isn't totally lost. There are two bluejays right outside my window. One flew down out of the tree and scared away a cardinal. Well, the boys thought that was neat.