There is a fungus among us...

It is a beautiful day here in SC and I was itching to be outside a little. A friend of mine in the UK put me on to an offer by the Woodland Trust nature detectives club that I could join free. We get packets in the mail with different projects and ideas in it for science. I have not done the ones I got in the past, but this time we have put it to use and it was great. We learned about fungi and how it was not a plant or animal. The children learned how their antibiotics come from fungi and how yeast and mold are also fungi. We then took our fungi flash cards outside to seek to identify the many mushrooms and fungi that are growing outside. The children eagerly jumped into it and we identified (to our laymans eyes) what looked like the common puffball, common birds nest, chicken of the woods, King Alfred's cakes and penny buns. Do you know that a King Alfred's cake can be used like charcoal to start a fire? Each of the cards tell what toxicity level it was from 0-10. I was able to reiterate to the little ones that we do not touch any mushrooms! We all really enjoyed the excursion.