Barb, Author at Homeschool Nature Study

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Barb — 16 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary in our nature travels is something we try to do on a regular basis. In my experience, the more you examine a subject, the better you really see it and its beauty….its extraordinary-ness!

Revisit the topic of mushrooms (or fungus) this week and try to find something extraordinary to discover. Make up stories about the mushrooms, recording them in your nature journal. Make sketches or additional watercolor entries in your nature journal. Take photos and add them to your nature journal. Enjoy!

Printable Activity: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary-Mushrooms

Free Printable Notebook Page: Extraordinary in the Ordinary
This is a great activity for using your imagination and for seeing beyond the ordinary. Take some time to find a subject for this Extraordinary in the Ordinary challenge. Take a deep look at any fungus you find in your yard or local area. Try to see the beauty of the structure, the placement, the role it plays in the habitat. Perhaps it provides food for a local animal or insect. Find some aspect to really enjoy as you spend one last week exploring the fungi in your world.

If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #9 – Small Square Study. Find a spot where you have some fungus growing and mark out your small square according to the instructions in this challenge. Use you keen observation skills to find as many things as you can in your square and then record your results on the notebooking page.

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Barb — 3 Comments

Slate Nature Study – Rock Update #3

Slate is a natural part of our landscape and it turns out after a little research that at the beginning of the 20th century, our county had one of the biggest slate mining trades in the whole United States. There are slate mines just a short way from our house and I never even knew it. I had seen the quarry but it did not occur to me that it was a slate mine. Turns out that on our side of the river they have started mining slate again.

Once upon a time they had an elaborate cable car system to get the slate from one side of the canyon to the other…I had heard about the cable crossings but I guess I never had put much thought into what they actually carried across on the cables. It wasn’t until this year’s rock challenges that I even put it all together.

One of the little mountain towns used to be called Slatington and it was called that because they made slate shingles. I never knew.

After last month’s study of shale, we were on the lookout for some samples of slate to collect. It didn’t take much effort since we now knew to look for the layers and then to test the rock’s hardness. If it broke easily, it was shale. If it was hard and wouldn’t easily break, it was slate.

We found this wonderful specimen on our regular hiking trail.

I think what was confusing me was that I thought that shale had to be black….turns out that is not the case. Our shale can be black, brown, reddish…or in between. It is the texture and fissure qualities that make slate easy to identify.

This is our second official rock from the list which we pulled from the book Rocks, Fossils and Arrowheads (Take-Along Guides). I am attempting to find and collect as many of the rocks from the book as possible during 2013: Rock Update.

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Barb — Leave a comment

Thanks to March’s Sponsor! NotebookingPages.Com!

March has been filled with lots of free notebooking pages, giveaways, and inspiration from NotebookingPages.com. I want to thank Debra one last time for having such an innovative company that is always trying to take notebooking to the next level. There are so many things I love about notebooking both for homeschooling and for nature journaling and this company always has just the right page for us to use.

Notebooking Opportunities For My Readers
I would love for my readers to take advantage of the 50% off discount code for any nature or science sets: nature50. Please note: add all items to cart before applying the discount code.

I encourage you to become a free member and have access to many notebooking pages to get started if you aren’t sure about this method of keeping your nature journal.

I invite you to one last giveaway coming up this Friday for the Nature Study Bundle of notebooking pages.
Congrats to the three winners so far this month!

Jen G
Gail F
Dianne O

I loved sharing my enthusiasm for notebooking this month and NotebookingPages.com is my preferred supplier of pages for our nature journals.

You can read more about our notebooking in our nature journal here:

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Barb — 6 Comments

California Spring Wildflowers – First Wave is Here

Spring wildflowers cheer my very soul. They seem to sing out to all of us that warmer days are coming and we don’t need to stay so much indoors anymore. We took a walk near the river yesterday and found so many pretty little flowers to enjoy. Above there are Baby Blue Eyes and Fivespot…there were whole patches of them on a sunny little hillside.

Round every corner there were more blue flowers….how many blue flowers do you know?

Okay, I have to admit that this is by far the best image I have ever taken of this particular flower….and it was with my iPhone! I love that you can even see a little ant enjoying the golden yellow color in the sunshine. These meadow buttercups are everywhere right now and they make the day seem brighter.

Here is going to be my first shrub for my Nature Study Goals for 2013. I will do my research and identify the shrub and add it to my nature journal…watch the blog for more information on this one.

This is our local Miner’s Lettuce in bloom – Claytonia perfoliata. Read more about it here: Claytonia perfoliata.

Nothing so pretty as Sierra Nevada Pea…..just now starting to shoot up and twine itself among the other wildflowers and weeds. Love this pink one the best!

So hopefully my wildflowers have cheered you up if you are having cold weather….and inspired you to go look for your own wildflowers if you have the opportunity.

Have you seen any wildflowers in your area yet?

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Barb — 2 Comments

5 Spring Nature Study Ideas

1. How about a spring cattail hunt? Find your own patch of cattails and complete some observations using the Handbook of Nature Study. There is even a free Seasonal Cattail Notebook Page to print!

2. Look for signs of spring in your part of the world. What better way to enjoy the early spring time outdoors? Use the suggestions in the challenge and then print the Signs of Spring notebook page for your nature journal.

3. One of the most popular “wildflower” challenges of all time is the Dandelion Challenge from the Spring Series! Everyone loves a good dandelion study and with this commonly found plant your family can enjoy a little flower study too!

4. Here is one that all of you gardeners will enjoy…earthworms! We love digging down into the fresh spring soil and that means lots of earthworms. My boys loved to go on an earthworm hunt while I pulled a few weeds in the garden boxes.

5. Everyone has weather….you can all take some early spring weather observations no matter if there is snow on the ground or you are experiencing rain showers or you have blue skies and white puffy clouds. Print a weather notebook page and have some fun outside recording your weather and observations.

There are lots more spring nature study ideas on the Spring Tab at the top of my blog. Pick one and enjoy a few minutes outdoors this week.

Have you seen some signs of spring in your neighborhood?

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Barb — 14 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Mushroom Nature Study with Cap Printable

Outdoor Hour Challenge:
For this challenge we are going to be on the lookout for any mushroom/fungus that we spy in our backyard or local area. Be sure to check out the previous mushroom nature study challenge from the Autumn Series of 2009. There is also a suggestion from the Handbook of Nature Study to capture a series of mushrooms in watercolors (page 717). I think this is such a wonderful idea and hope to start with one mushroom watercolor this week.

You may wish to print and take the printable below with you during your outdoor time to record any mushrooms you find to observe. If you need an explanation for the vocabulary used with the printable, see the links below (also found on page 717 of the Handbook of Nature Study).

The printable grid from the newsletter and the printable from the first challenge this month are both applicable to this challenge as well.

Free Printable Activity: Sketch Mushroom Cap Shapes

Free Printable Notebook Page:
Mushroom Cap Sketches

Great Links:
How to Identify Mushrooms and Where to Find Them
Mushroom Chart with Illustrations
Cap Morphology on Wikipedia ***
Fabulous Fungi (UK website)
Advanced vocabulary and diagrams-mushrooms

Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #3. Drawing mushrooms in your nature journal can be fun and interesting…a great way to really see all the parts. Include labels, the date and location you found the mushroom, and any other fun facts from your outdoor time. Make it personal and special.

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Barb — 4 Comments

Spring Birds and Blue Skies

We had a flock of Cedar Waxwings come through yesterday and I was able to capture some pretty images of them up in the trees. They don’t ever stay long but I love to watch them…..we usually hear them before we spy them up in the trees. They have such a distinct sound.

So enjoy a couple of images of my friends the Cedar Waxwings.

They came on a Project Feederwatch day when I was observing the feeders. We have had fewer birds but more of a variety now that the season is changing. I say bring on the springtime weather!

The trees all continue to pop out with colors and this finch was spotted up in the tree just singing away.

What a great time of year to observe some birds and record the experiences in your nature journal.

So what birds have you seen in your yard this week?

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Barb — 3 Comments

Moss on Our Nature Table and Up-Close

What a delightful addition to our nature table! Moss in a pot adds some color and texture to our little growing area of the nature table where we also have several varieties of cactus growing. The light seems just about right here for the moss and so far we have watered it once a week and it is still going strong.

The moss on the plate above was the specimen we brought inside to examine as part of the Moss Challenge from last week. We viewed it closely with our eyes, magnifying lens, and camera lens. There really is a lot to see and the parts of the moss are really interesting.

After viewing, I took a small pot and filled it with some regular garden soil and then placed our specimen on the top. I watered it well from the top and then pressed it firmly onto the soil. I did a little research and it said that moss really does like to be watered from the bottom so when I need to water it I place it in a small bowl of water and let it sit until the whole thing is moist.

Here are few images that we took with our camera…really showing the capsules and the stems.

Amazing structure and no wonder it is soft and enjoyable to the touch!

Our front yard is a great habitat for moss since we pulled out the lawn. The cracks in the pavers and the area below the retaining wall have moss that adds such a great feel to the yard. We did not plan on the moss but it just invited itself to grow in the cracks and crannies.

The big rocks in the foreground were bright green with moss a month or so ago but since we have had warmer temperatures and drier days the moss has turned sort of brown. I know with the next rain it will green up again so I will enjoy that when it happens. You can see our Lamb’s ear plant here in this image…one of my favorite low water plants in our front yard….I know it spreads but with the big rocks right there and the retaining wall behind, it can’t go too far.

So there you go…our continuing moss study! Don’t forget there is a free printable in the Moss and Lichen Challenge that you can use to record your own moss study.

How about your family? Have you found some moss to explore with all your senses?

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Barb — 12 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Lichen and Moss Nature Study

“The mosses are a special delight to children because they are green and beautiful before other plants have gained their greenness in the spring and after they have lost it in the fall; to the discerning eye, a mossy bank or a mossy log is a thing of beauty always.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 709

Outdoor Hour Challenge:
This week continue looking for lichen and moss to examine closely. Use lots of descriptive words as you observe your subjects. You can view and use the information from Outdoor Hour Challenge #42: Moss and Lichen.

Weekly Challenge Activity: Moss Observation

Free Printable Moss Observation Notebook Page

Use this notebook page to record your sketch and notes about any moss you find this month as part of your outdoor time. The Handbook of Nature Study has information about Hair-cap moss in Lesson 197.

Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #2. This is the perfect challenge to put all those wonderful moss and lichen words in your nature journal records. Help your child get started by spending a few minutes discussing all the amazing things you noticed about moss and lichen while outdoors.

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Barb — 1 Comment

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Family Mushroom/Lichen/Moss Grid Study

Fungus, lichen, and moss have been at the top of our nature study list for a few weeks now in anticipation of this month’s grid study….that is one advantage to being the author of the challenges. 🙂

I feel like we have done a decent job so far at keeping our eyes open and finding some subjects for our fungus, lichen, and moss studies. I highly recommend pulling out your March Newsletter and printing out the Study Grid….keep it in sight so you will remember to spend a few minutes each week looking for subjects to enjoy.

Words that come to mind as part of this grid study are amazing, colorful, and surprising.

Amazing – How do I miss really seeing all these lovely things? The more time we spend looking at them up close, the more amazed we are at their variety and heartiness.

Colorful – From deep greens and bright spring greens to orange and then all the way to black….there is no end to the variations.

Surprising – We found subjects at the river’s edge, alongside our walking trail, up in the mountains in the snow, and in our own yard.

Here is my number one moss, lichen, and fungus hunting buddy….after her swim in the river. Kona is always ready to accompany us on our expeditions…especially if there is water involved. She is also amazing, colorful, and surprising…

Hopefully you are finding some things of interest for your own Mushroom/Lichen/Moss study….make sure to share your entries with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.

You are welcome to submit any of you blog Outdoor Hour Challenge blog entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. Entries for the current month are due on 3/30/13..

Author: Barb