Barb, Author at Homeschool Nature Study

Posted on April 1, 2009 by Barb — 6 Comments

Tulips in the Garden: Wednesday Flower Study #3=Fresh Faces

Do you remember last fall when I was busy planting bulbs and sharing the process? I am now reaping the benefits of our labor….in the form of gorgeous tulips.

Breathtaking flowers that are amazing in color and shape. It makes me want to plant more!

We took the opportunity to do a little nature study using the Handbook of Nature Study.

“There are a great many varieties of tulips, and their brilliant colors make our gardens gorgeous in early spring….Water-coloring drawings may be used as helps in studying the tulip. The red varieties are best for beginning the study, and then follow with the other colors; note differences.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 553 and 555

We looked at all the parts of the tulip and here is a good shot of the pollen on the inside of the petals. We also looked at tulips just opening and noted the shapes. We looked at the sepals and petals, the buds, and the open flower. We are going to wait until the petals fall off and then observe the seed pod. The HNS suggests dissecting the seed pod and making observations then.

We sketched and painted in our nature journals to remember our first bloom of tulips in this part of the garden. Previously, someone asked me about painting directly into the journal and it has never been a problem for us. We just leave the page open for a little while and it dries very nicely. I do not paint on back to back sides though.

So my best advice is to paint only on one side and let it sit long enough to dry.

One last tulip photo….

Creamy, dreamy white tulip.

Lurking in our garden at all times is the fearless Cocoa. This is her “Ferdinand the Bull” imitation….resting among the chickweed and the alyssum. Photo taken by my middle son….thanks Mr. A.

So that concludes our tulip study for this week. We now have three flowers completed and are on track to study poppies next week.

Now it is your turn. Pick a flower from the Handbook of Nature Study or from your garden and make your own flower study. You do not need to pick tulips….pick something you have in your area. Here is the first entry in this series to explain more about Wednesday Flower Study day.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/07/new-outdoor-hour-challenge-ebook-garden_27.html

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Barb — 2 Comments

House Finch: A Frequent Flyer Around Our Feeder

Female House Finch or is it a female purple finch?

The House finch is what you would call a “regular” in our yard. You will see one or two just about every day perched at the feeder and enjoying a fine meal.

The Backyard Bird Book said this about House finches, “These lively red and brown birds may become the most frequent visitors to your bird feeder.”

We had some trouble at first determining whether we had a House finch, a Purple finch, or a Cassin’s finch. It took us some time but we finally determined that we had House finches with regularity, Purple finches at certain times of the year, and an occasional Cassin’s finch. (see the link below to view their photos)

I still have trouble and the photos in this entry could be of purple finches. (I know that many of you think I am the expert but I am truly learning right alongside you.)

How do you tell the difference? They are all on the same page of our field guide and the Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds shows the field marks to look for on page 343. The males have very distinct coloration differences and once you know what to look for, you can easily distinguish the three birds from each other. This clear indication of the field marks is what I really like about the Peterson Field Guides.

Here is a link to a very clear description and photos to tell the three very similar birds apart:
Tricky Bird IDs-House Finch, Purple Finch, and Cassin’s Finch (Cornell Birds)

Here is another website that has the song of the House finch:
Learning Bird Songs: House Finch

This photo really shows the color of the finches that we have in our feeder. Some day I will get a good photo of one of this beautiful birds.

Another mystery to us was this orange finch.

We discovered that there is a variation in the house finch where sometimes it is orange like this one that comes daily to our feeders.

“House Finch coloring varies widely, and research shows that most of the variation is caused by diet. All male House Finches have the same potential for yellow, orange, or red coloration.”
Project Feeder Watch

Other birds we observed this week:

2 gorgeous red-tailed hawks soaring over my dad’s house
Canadian geese flying over our house
Crows
Western scrub-jays who were building their nests and are very vocal right now
Titmouse
Dark-eyed juncos
Wild turkeys-whole flock in the road with one male showing his big, fluffy tail
Robins singing in our tree-my middle son said that they woke him up yesterday morning with their very long song
Some kind of yellowish brown finch in the bushes alongside our trail
Turkey vultures soaring in the afternoon sun
Cedar Waxwings-about two dozen in the tree at once
Mourning doves-a pair of them my son spotted in the lawn and then under the feeder
California towhees

It has been a busy birding week around our place. When we take our afternoon walks now we can hear lots of different birds…it is as if a whole world is awakening around us. I love it.

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Barb — 1 Comment

Early Spring Wildflowers Part 4

Here is the latest post in my quest to identify all the wildflowers that bloom along our hiking trail…little did I know how hard it would be. 🙂

Sigh. So pretty.

This flower is starting to bloom on the hillside on our daily hiking trail. Sunny spots and open areas are popping up with these delicate lavender colored flowers.

I have scoured our field guides but with no success.

Edit: We identified it this evening!!! It is a Blue Dick or Dichelostemma capitatum
or here is another description.

I see it in many spots in our county so I know it is something native. These photos were taken the first day I observed it and now it has four parts blooming on the end of the stem. The leaves are thin and pointed and close to the ground.

Another surprise flower that will be blooming soon. I don’t have any idea what it is so it will be a wonderful gift to see what is in store with this flower.
Edit: I now know this is a California Indian Pink.

Wow! Look at those pointy things on this plant! Here is another photo.

See the purple flowers there….those are on the ends of the pointy parts. (The white flowers are something else.) I feel so humbled by all the flowers and plants that I have never learned about before. What an amazing Creator we have that has all these interesting things for us to learn about.

Now, I know this is not a wildflower but this insect came flying by as I was taking photos and it startled me. It was really big and what an interesting shape.

The body looks like a yellow brain and the wings were really long with a green spot on the edge. Anyone have any idea what it is?
Edit: My hubby and I spent a few minutes with our field guide and then Google images and we identified this insect: Green Stigma Hangingfly.

This flower is blooming *everywhere* alongside the trail. So delicate and pretty and I love the color of this one. Still working on identifying it though.

This is definitely a work in progress.

Posted on March 28, 2009 by Barb — 2 Comments

Dog Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge-Mammals

Outdoor Hour Challenge #51 took us some time to complete for some reason. The boys didn’t think that they needed to learn much about our dog but after we got going, we really enjoyed some of the ideas that Anna Botsford Comstock suggested in the accompanying lesson.

We watched the PBS video on wolves in Yellowstone and we were so interested to see how the circle of life goes round and round even within one national park. I think someone else mentioned that they had a hard time knowing which side to be on when you saw a skirmish. I totally agree with that…..like with the wolves, the elk, and the coyotes. Each one had its family and its physical needs and without eating each other, none would survive. It gave us lots to think about.

Now to our crazy dog study….my boys were so funny working through the lesson on dogs in the Handbook of Nature Study. I couldn’t believe how much they could answer without even getting up and looking at the dog or the cat. The comparison between the two in the lesson ideas worked out great because it made us stop and really think about the differences between canines and felines.

Sleeping dogs are great to take photos of since they don’t move around. She really doesn’t like us to take photos of her very much and trying to get photos of her body parts was impossible. I felt like we needed to wrestle her to the ground but my son decided that having a little “scooby snack” in his hand did the trick.

I think I shared this photo before but this is a priceless photo of our dog showing her teeth. I don’t remember exactly what we were doing that made her give us a “smile” but it makes me laugh every time I see this picture.

Her ears are also very expressive in real life and we can tell if she is listening by the way she has them positioned. Sometimes when she runs her ears turn inside out and it looks so cute.

Even though we didn’t have much success getting photos, we did have a great time examining the things that the Handbook of Nature Study suggested we look at during a good dog study. Kona uses her nose to sniff just about everything when we go for our walk and we have even named one spot on the trail “Smelly Rocks” because she can’t bear to pass by without giving them a good sniff. There is also one particular bush alongside the path that gets her interest every time as well. This photo is sort of a “all the better to smell you with” kind of photo…..her nose looks really long and her nostrils very large.

If you haven’t completed this particular Outdoor Hour Challenge yet, I encourage you to do so with your own dog. You will learn a lot!

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Barb — 10 Comments

Wednesday Flower Study #2-What Are You Going to Study This Week?

This week we studied the dandelion. This cheerful flower/weed is found all over our yard and our neighbor has a whole crop of dandelions for us to study.

Here are some interesting facts we found out about the dandelion.

*In the sunflower family-No wonder I think they are happy little flowers.
*Grows from 2″ to 20″ tall.
*It has a hollow stalk.
*Common name comes from “dent de lion” which is French for “lion’s tooth”, referring to the teeth on the leaves.
*The flowers open and close.

You must read the introductory pages to the dandelion study starting on page 531 of the Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Botsford Comstock writes in such a narrative style that you will enjoy reading the information and I am sure you will remember much of it to share with your children.

“Professor Baily once said that dandelions in his lawn were a great trouble to him until he learned to love them, and then the sight of them gave him keenest pleasure.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 531

I couldn’t agree more. I always hate it when my neighbors use the weed eater to remove the thousands of dandelions from their property. I would much rather look at the cheerful yellow flowers than a bare piece of ground.

The Handbook of Nature Study has a great list of activities in the lesson for the dandelion.

Here are a few that we complete:
3. Sketch or describe a dandelion leaf.
4. Take a blossom not yet open. Note the bracts that cover the unopened flower head.
7. Note what hour the dandelions on the lawn close and at what hour they open on pleasant days.

We were able to work on all three of these ideas in our study today.

Here are the bracts covering the petals before the bloom opens.

Really short dandelion that practically is blooming flat on the ground…interesting how some are tall and some are not.

You can really see the “lion’s teeth” in this photo. 🙂

Another garden flower/weed is now recorded in our nature journals.

I think next week we will work on the tulips in our yard that are just starting to really bloom.

If you would like to join us, see the instructions in this entry: Wednesday Flower Study.

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Barb — 4 Comments

Robins in Our Nature Journals-Finally!

These are some feathers we found on our front lawn under a big tree. We are not sure what kind of bird feathers they are but they were very, very soft. We spent our Outdoor Hour listening to birds and trying to spot them. Our feeders have slowed down a bit in the last few weeks with the changing weather. The most predominant birds in our backyard feeders are Western scrub jays and House sparrows at this time of year.

My son was telling me about the flock of robins that were perched in the tree outside his window yesterday after our snowstorm. He thought there must have been dozens of them.

We have a resident robin that sits in the very top of our tree outside the front window and he sings and sings and sings very early in the morning…starting just about this time of year.

Here is what our robin sounds like in the morning:
Robin at Learn Bird Songs

We read through the information in the Handbook of Nature Study and found most of it was new to us. How could we be so uninformed about a bird we practically see very day?

“Moreover, a robin notebook, if well kept, is a treasure for any child; and the close observation necessary for this lesson trains the pupils to note in a comprehending way the habits of other birds. It is the very best preparation for bird study of the right sort.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 57

This statement in the introduction to robins made me stop and think about all of our bird studies. The point is well made that birding is more than just learning to identify birds. Careful study of any particular bird helps us to learn so much about *all* birds and it gives us skills we can use with all birds. We took special interest in the schedule of robin study in the lesson given for robins. This is another example of how to expand nature study to really get the most out of it. My boys were not particularly interested in studying robins so I think we will skip the in-depth study but we will apply the principles to a bird that does interest them.

This week some of us decided to use the coloring page from Cornell to complete in our nature journal and Mr. B (youngest son) decided to just free-hand draw a robin to include in his binder. I like to use the coloring page and then add my own interesting facts as well.

We will be moving on to the House finch later in the week and I will share that study when we are finished.

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Barb — 2 Comments

Early Spring Wildflowers (Part 3)

Popcorn flower
(found in the meadow, sunny location)

“There should be from first to last a steady growth in the intelligence of the child as to the places where certain plants grow. He finds hepaticas and trilliums in the woods, daisies and buttercups in the sunny fields, mullein on the dry hillsides, cattails in the swamp, and water lilies floating on the pond. This may all be taught by simply asking the pupils questions relating to the soil and the special conditions of the locality where they found the flowers they bring to school. ”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 458

We are adding a few new flowers to our list of early spring wildflowers along our walking trail. I am also updating a few photos to ones taken with my older camera with the better macro lens.

Chickweed…..now I see it everywhere! Even in our backyard!
(along the trail)

Spring Beauty
(along the trail)

Unidentified as of today.
(along the trail in the shade…very low to the ground with interesting leaf shape)

Fiddleneck
(sunny areas)

Here is another photo of Fiddleneck

And another Fiddleneck.

We found a whole patch of Miner’s Lettuce.
(growing in patches along the path…moist areas)

The California poppies are just beginning to bloom on our hiking trail.
(sunny hillside, along the trail)

Common Owl’s Clover
(Note to self: This was on the walking trail and not the Red Shack Trail. Growing along side the trail and on a sunny hillside.)

These flowers are all from last week’s hikes. I am trying my best to keep current.

We had a snowstorm yesterday morning! It all melted rather quickly though and today we were back to our spring like weather.

Tomorrow I will try to post about our bird study and then on Wednesday we will share a garden flower study from the Handbook of Nature Study.

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Barb — 11 Comments

How to Make a Plant Press

If you didn’t catch my video on how to make a simple flower press last year, I wanted to post it again.

We have been using our press just about every day this week and it is an easy way to press your flowers that you are learning about for your Wednesday Flower Study lessons. It only takes a few days in the press and then the flowers are ready for your nature journal. Let you kids watch the video and have them make it for themselves…it really is that easy.

Here is the link to YouTube: Flower Press

Or you can watch it here on the blog.

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Barb — 8 Comments

Violets are Blue? How about Purple?

We began our study by reading the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study. Wow! If you are the least bit interested in violets and you get the chance, you must read the information in the Handbook of Nature Study, pages 476-479. This section is jam-packed with information about violets but also about more general ideas for a nature portfolio (we would call it a nature journal).

“To make this work of the greatest use and interest, each pupil should make a portfolio of the violets of the locality. This may be in the form of pressed and mounted specimens, or of water-color drawings. In either case, the leaf, leafstalk, flower, flower stalk, and rootstock should be shown, and each blossom should be neatly labeled with name, locality, and date. From the nature-study standpoint, a portfolio of drawings is the more desirable, since from making the drawings the pupils become more observant of the differences in structure and color which distinguish the species. Such a portfolio may be a beautiful object…..Each drawing may be followed by a page containing notes by the pupil and some appropriate quotation from botany, poetry, or other literature.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 478

The variety of violets that grow in our yard is extremely fragrant. It is hard to imagine that such a sweet, strong smell comes from such a delicate little bloom.

Our violets grow in a shady, moist area of our yard, mostly around the edges of our deck. They spread easily to other shady areas as well and it is always a joy to see them sprout up in new places.

We carefully observed whether our violets had the leaf stalks come directly from the underground rootstocks or if they came from a common stem as suggested in the Handbook. We observed that the leaves were smooth and glossy. We looked at the sepals and petals.

We looked into the opening that leads to the nectar-spur. We found the tiny undevelped flowers that will produce seeds down near the rootstalk that are meant for self-pollination. So many things we would have never thought to look for all on our own.

As I suspected, I was the only one who wanted to actually watercolor in their nature journal. I allow the boys the freedom to choose how to follow up their nature study.

We pressed a leaf and a flower for my son’s nature journal binder.

I love working with watercolor pencils….such an easy way to get a great effect in your nature journal.

It felt so good to be out in the garden this morning. The sun was warm and it was great to spend time with the boys. Our hands got a little dirty in the soil and that is oh, so good after a long winter. I look forward to seeing what you come up with for your Wednesday Flower Study.

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Barb — 7 Comments

Wednesday Flower Study-An Invitation For You

After writing yesterday’s post about flowers, I had the brainstorm to start with a Wednesday Flower Study each week.

I have been reading through the Handbook of Nature Study’s section on plants…especially wildflowers, weeds, and garden flowers and I realized that we have a long list of flowers that we need to include in our nature journals.

“The only right way to begin plant study with young children is through awakening their interest in and love for flowers.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 453

So in order to make myself accountable and to include you in the study, I have outlined a schedule of flowers to include over the next few weeks. Please feel free to make your own list of flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study.

Here is our list:

Flowers Blooming Already or That We Can Study Right Now
Violet (page 476) Finished 3/18/09. Here is a LINK.
Buttercup (page 516) Finished 4/27/09. Here is a LINK.
Tulip (page 552) Finished 4/1/09. Here is a LINK.
California Poppy (page 531) Finished 4/8/09. Here is a LINK.
Petunias (page 581) Finished 4/20/09. Here is a LINK.
Mullein (page 537) Finished 5/5/09. Here is a LINK.
Dandelion (page 531) Finished 3/25/09. Here is a LINK.

Flowers that We’ll Study in Addition to Those Above
Bleeding Heart (page 558) Finished 4/15/09. Here is a LINK.
Bachelor’s Buttons (page 578)Finished 5/20/09. Here is a LINK.
Sweet Peas (page 588) Finished 5/27/09. Here is a LINK.
Queen Anne’s Lace (page 542) Finished 6/3/09. Here is a LINK.

I think that should keep us busy for a few weeks. I realize that everyone’s list will be different and I look forward to seeing what your family finds to study.

I think we will start with the violet this week and perhaps the dandelion as well.

We will read through the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study and then use the observation ideas to go out and really take a look at our violets.There are a lot of ideas for nature study in the Handbook section on violets but first and foremost we will just enjoy the beauty and fragrance as we begin our flower study this week.

I am going to try to get the boys to join me for nature journal entries as well. One son has switched over to pressing flowers for his nature journal and one son would rather take photos so you will get to see a variety of types of nature journals as we go through the next few weeks.

Here is a link to wildflower coloring pages if you are interested in including something like that in your nature journal or as a way to see how to sketch them yourselves.
Wildflower Coloring Pages

So pick one flower this week and get started!

One flower, one tree, one bird at a time. It works.

Author: Barb