We took advantage of a break in the rain clouds this weekend and went on a Nature Hike. Lots of critters greeted us along the way.
Our Homeschool Playgroup went on a field trip to the 4H Butterfly Gardens just after Easter. The presentation itself was a little below the group… there wasn’t a question the lady asked that at least half the group couldn’t answer. But everyone had a good time and enjoyed the warm sunny day in the butterfly house and in the children’s garden after. Unfortunately due to unseasonably cold weather in the south this year, there were not very many chrysalis available to the garden so there were not swarms of butterflies like we have seen in the past.
I know I posted earlier today… but we really took advantage of our sunny day (65F and mostly Sunny – perfect 🙂 ) and also completed our Handbook of Nature Study Blog Challenge for Autumn Weather this afternoon. We still have to complete our pumpkin study and will hopefully get to that tomorrow. Although we have already carved our decorative ones, I did buy a pie pumpkin special for our Nature Study.
For the Weather Study we spent a lot of time looking at the thermometer. We didn’t have a way to measure the wind speed but we observed the rustling leaves on the trees and sat very still, with our arms outstretched to feel the wind.
The kids took their time on their journal pages. Bug drew a tree that still had many of its leaves on and Fairy focused on one that was already bare.
This week’s Handbook of Nature Study Blog Assignment was Oak Trees. We went on a short walk, it’s been so cold this week, and were lucky to find two different oaks to study. I believe one is an English Oak and the other a Northern Red Oak (feel free to offer other suggests if you think otherwise).
The kids love oak trees. They will spend hours collecting the acorns, which are affectionately known as gnome hats around here.
We did not do a formal journal entry this week. Instead, we played with making leaf rubbings. After a few disappointing results I started taping the leaves to the table and the paper over the leaves for the kids. That helped a bunch and we ended up with some pretty pages.
Just for fun… here is our Oak Tree Study from last year.BTW – the acorns never did sprout. I had meant to look into that… maybe I will get a chance to this fall… and maybe we will try it again.
Our goldenrod was just about spent for the season but we were still able to complete our Goldenrod Nature Study this week. Gammy has tons of goldenrod on the edge of her property. Finding some was not a problem (my eyes are itching just looking at the photos 😉 ).
Gammy sat with us and added a page in her journal too.
Here is Fairy’s journal page.
Bug actually drew several pages of goldenrod. Here is one of his.
We took advantage of a beautiful afternoon yesterday and completed our Fall Tree Nature Study. We haven’t be doing any of the Handbook of Nature Study Blog Challenges since the spring and we had a lot of fun getting started again. The kids each got to pick new trees for this year.
Fairy picked her favorite apple tree. (She spends a lot of time up in that tree). The apple tree will definitely go through a lot of changes throughout the year and should make for a fun study. She spent a lot of time trying to pick just the right color green for the leaves.
Bug picked a Rock Elm, which we identified earlier this fall, that is right smack in the middle of the yard. This is a great choice because we can see if from the kitchen table. He added halloween characters to his tree drawing (I guess it shows it’s autumn). LOL – that boy doodles in every margin.
We really enjoyed observing our butterflies using the Butterfly House kit Bug got for Christmas last year. I imagine we will be ordering more caterpillars in the future to repeat this project.
Fairy watching the caterpillars.
The caterpillars formed their chrysalis within a couple days and we moved them into their ‘house.’
All five of the butterflies emerged within a few hours of each other.
Here is a pretty Painted Lady Butterfly drying it’s wings (shot through the netting).
Once all the butterflies were actively flapping around in the house we took them outside to let them go in the garden. They were not in a huge hurry to move on from their sugar soaked flowers.
Our memorization piece for this week comes from First Language Lessons and happened by pure happenstance to tie in nicely with our Butterfly study.
"The Caterpillar"
by Christina G. Rossetti
Brown and fury
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk.
My no toad spy you,
May the little birds pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.
Here are the illustrations the kids did to go with the poem.
Bug’s Caterpillar:
Fairy’s Butterfly:
This weekend we took the kids on a hike at our local nature center. We did a shorter one than our last few treks… only about a mile this time but ran into some sand hill cranes and for the first time ever, a flock of wild turkeys (unfortunately the darkness of the forest is similar to shooting indoors and my camera was useless). But what held the kids’ interest the most was this big Snapping Turtle that was hanging out by the dock near the nature center. They must have spent 30 minutes watching it swim around the giant catfish.
My brother is in town for a couple weeks and we took him on a fun hike today at the local nature center. We got to see lots of water birds… no babies yet… but nesting in action.
Sandhill Crane
Great Blue Herons
Mallard Ducks
Swan
Canadian Geese
And something that was really interesting… the local fire department was conducting a controlled burn on one of the trails. The kids wanted to check it out… how can a few birds compare with firemen? We watched them for a little bit from a safe distance.
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.
