We were finally able to participate in an Outdoor Hour Nature Study project this week… it has been awhile. This week’s focus was Cardinals, Finches and Robins… super easy assignment for us. Our feeders are filled with the first two species and the Robins have recently returned… much to the kids’ enjoyment. For awhile there with every Robin sighting in the yard, Bug would pull us away from our other activities to watch at the window.
The kids have been stalking the Robins in our yard. Watching them trying to catch one makes me laugh and remember how my grandpa had teased us as kids. He told us that if you sprinkled salt on a bird’s tail feather you could catch him. Of course now I know that the joke is if you can get close enough to shake salt on the bird you could catch it… not that there is some magical property in the salt that renders the bird flightless and therefore easier to catch… as my brothers and I thought as kids. Ha… to think of us chasing the birds with a shaker of salt. 😉
I also dug up some photos from last summer of a Robin’s nest that was housed in a crabapple tree along side my grandmother’s deck. We enjoyed watching the little guys getting bigger and eventually take off on their own. I hope we are able to find another nest in easy viewing distance again this year.
BTW-If you can get your hands on a copy of Round Robin I highly recommend it. It is hand’s down one of my kids’ favorite books.
It is hard for us to call this an autumn weather study… since the weather around here is decidedly winter these days. Here are our few brief observations between helping Daddy shovel the driveway and full out playing in the snow.
Observations at around 3pm:
Cloudy – sky was all gray
Snowing – big, wet flakes (accumulation was less than 1″)
Windy – (I looked up later that the wind was about 13mph from W)
Temperature – right at freezing 32F
Snowman conditions… perfect. Sledding conditions… a bit sticky and slow.
Join in the Outdoor Hour Challenge #40.
Does climbing an Apple Tree count as a nature study? LOL.
Just Bug and I did the nature study this week. Fairy and Pixie were under the weather and not interested in being out in the cold for too long when we had a chance to work on this. Apple trees in our area are pretty much spent for the season. We got lots of good apple picking in earlier this fall though and have made almost weekly trips to the cider mill. There are a couple apple trees in the neighbor’s yard and we choose to take a closer look at those for our study.
I read out loud from the Handbook of Nature Study while he colored a picture of an apple tree. We talked for a bit about grafting and why a farmer would choose to do that over planting seeds.
Then we headed outside. We made some quick observations before Bug wanted a boost up into the tree.
Some of our observations:
It looks like it has several trunks.
The top looks like a ball.
The leaves only have one finger that have lots of teeth (his words).
The apples left were pretty gross.
The bark flaked off easy in places.
The bark was gray with some green mossy stuff (I should ID).
There were no more bees.
There were lots of new shoots growing out of where some limbs had been cut off (which made it very pokey and hard to climb).
There was a grasshopper hiding on one.
One of the things I find interesting is how all the trees we have studied I describe as having gray bark – not brown. So why is it that I always reach for Crayola brown instead? Somehow I have been trained to think brown even though what I really see is closer to a shade of gray if I had to generalize. Kinda makes me wonder what else I haven’t really seen.
We did a lot more apple tree related activities in our Johnny Appleseed week and our Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree week. Or just do a search for apple on my site.
We started this study by reading the beautiful book “The Acorn’s Story.” It does not appear to be in print at the moment but there are some used copies on Amazon for as little as $0.13. I highly recommend it for the Preschool-1st grade range. It is quite lovely.
We looked in our neighborhood and could not find an oak tree to study so we packed up and headed to the park. Gammy and Othy joined us. We collected lots of acorns and then sat down at a picnic table to draw in our journals. It was chillier than we planned for and we ended up rummaging through the car for extra layers. Once we were warm enough, we chose what appears to be a White Oak to focus on. BTW – If you would like to make your own Treasure Pouch for nature collecting it is the Free Pattern of the Month on Wee Folk Art right now.
Here are some of our observations:
No acorns left on the tree.
Grey, rough bark.
Leaves yellow/green.
Leaves have rounded lobes.
Leaves about 3-6in long.
Tree bending to one side at the top to get out of the shade of the other trees.
Some very twisty branches.
Acorn top covers about 1/3 of the whole acorn.
Acorn top looks slightly scaly.
Acorn is brownish.
Most acorns had detached from their caps.
When we got home we decided to try and plant some acorns to see what would happen. Since White Oaks acorns mature in one year we shouldn’t need any dormant time in order to sprout the trees. I will post an update if we get some progress.
Then during the girls’ nap time I had Bug check out this awesome web program about trees: Exploring the Secret Lives of Trees. He really enjoyed and went through the whole program twice. Check it out!
Join in the Outdoor Hour Nature Studies.