Barb, Author at Homeschool Nature Study

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Barb — 5 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #12 Focus on Garden Flowers

Many of you have expressed the desire to have a group focus for the Outdoor Hour Challenges. I hesitated at first because among the participants there are such a variety of habitats involved in the Outdoor Hour Challenges. We have those participants that live in the rainy Northwest, some live in the hot Southwest, many live in urban areas, and then there are families that are just getting their feet wet with nature study all around the world.

After much thought and consideration, I managed to convince myself that we could all share in a focus area to some extent and if you choose not to participate in the group focus, you are certainly welcome to pick your own focus area and share with everyone week by week as well. I want the Outdoor Hour Challenges to be positive and encouraging and I will strive to maintain that goal.

If you are new to gardening and need some tips, I will give you some easy instructions. Growing plants from seeds is easy. We use yogurt cups filled with a little potting soil to start our seeds. Follow the directions on the seed packet for seed planting depth, watering, and transplanting. Good first choices are sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds, and petunias. In general you can grow just about anything in a little cup or pot as long as it gets some sun and a little water each day. If it is still cold at night where you live, you may want to sprout your seeds indoors. Our weather has warmed up so we are growing ours on our back deck. As an experiment you could keep some cups outdoors and some indoors just to see the difference in their growth. (That’s extra credit.)

Outdoor Hour Challenge #12
Start Your Engines…I Mean Seeds

1. Begin an eight week focus on garden flowers. Follow along with us as we adventure into the garden, whether it is your own flower pot with seeds in it, a square foot garden, a park with some flowers to observe, or anything in between. Read pages 453-456 in the Handbook of Nature Study-How to Begin The Study of Plants and Their Flowers.

“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

This would be a great week to take a field trip to a garden nursery to observe the variety of colors and textures in garden flowers that are available in your local area. While you are there, let your child pick out a flower to add to your home garden. You can pick out seeds to grow, a plant already growing in a pot, or both. If you haven’t started a garden yet, pick a flower that you can grow in a container either on your back porch or in a window. (Please note that in week 16 we will all be starting sunflowers and you may wish to pick those seeds up while you are at the nursery.) If you are starting some garden flowers from seed, make sure to water them according to the directions on the package. In general you will want to keep them moist during the germination period (until you see the plant popping out of the ground).

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for some garden flowers in your own area. If you already have some of your own garden flowers blooming, pick one to identify and see if it is listed in the Handbook of Nature Study.

3. Start a new list in your nature journal of garden flowers that you have planted or that you have seen while on your field trip or during your outdoor time. Make sure as you start this study of garden flowers that you turn to the Handbook of Nature Study’s table of contents to the “Garden Flowers” section and mark or highlight those garden flowers listed that you think you will encounter during your nature study time. Each week pick one flower to read about before you have your OHC time and this will help you have some interesting information to share with your children. If you found a new flower during your nature time, be sure to follow up with a reading in the Handbook of Nature Study if it is listed in the book.

4. Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry. Drawing flowers is a very enjoyable experience for most children.

5. If you are going to make field guide cards for your garden flowers, start those this week. Try to make one card per week and at the end of this focus period you will have eight cards completed.

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

This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Barb — 3 Comments

Spider and a Ladybug: Tangled Webs

My son’s keen eyes spotted this drama happening right on our back deck. The spider was spinning this ladybug up as we watched. The spider is gorgeous.

“Perhaps no structure made by a creature lower than man is so exquisitely perfect as the orb web of the spider…..There should be an orb web where the pupils can observe it, preferably with the spider in attendance.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 44

Posted on May 1, 2008December 29, 2021 by Barb — 3 Comments

How to Make a Nature Journal

I thought I would share a quick little nature journal idea that we like to make for an outing or a special roadtrip.

Materials:

4 sheets of paper…any kind will do
hole punch
rubberband
twig

Fold the paper in half.

Punch two holes near the edge of the folded side of the paper.

Put the rubberband around the twig and then down through one of the holes.

Stretch the rubberband on the backside of the paper and up through the other hole.

Put the rubberband around the other end of the twig.

There you have it.

Add decoration to the cover if you wish.

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

Handbook of Nature Study: Benefits of Giving it a Try

Handbook of Nature Study
Benefits of Giving it a Try

The last ten weeks have brought me to a new understanding of the Handbook of Nature Study. Pulling together and organizing the Outdoor Hour Challenges every Friday on my blog has pushed me to really get to know how to use and benefit from this rather large book.

Here are the some benefits so far:
1. I have read the introductory pages of the book about ten times, highlighted and underlined the parts that spoke to me, and found many gems to share with others. These pages teach *me* to help my children better with their nature study.
2. Our family picked a focus area in the book and used that focus area to learn more about garden flowers. There were about ten flowers listed in the book that we have access to and we have used the observation suggestions from the book to help us better know about the flowers we have in our local area. Even when a flower isn’t specifically covered, the garden flower introductory pages helped us learn the basic structure of the flower and so much more.
3. I know now that I won’t find every item we want to study in the book and have gathered a few local field guides to supplement our study.
4. We are regularly working in our nature journals and keeping up with making field guide cards for our focus area.
5. I am no longer trying to fit our nature study to the book but rather the book to our nature study.

Are there things I don’t like about the book? Yes. Do I think that this is the only book we need for nature study? No. Is this book a positive influence on our family? YES!

If you decide to try the book, go through the first few Outdoor Hour Challenges and read the suggested pages to get you started. You don’t need to follow the activities but just reading the assigned pages in the book will give you a better idea of how you can use this book in your family.

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Barb — Leave a comment

Outdoor Hour Challenge #10 Our First Outdoor Dinner/Picnic

We had been trying all week to get outdoors to have a picnic to complete Green Hour Challenge #10 but the weather just did not cooperate. It rained and then even though the sun was out, it was really still too cold to eat outside. I was determined to eat out on the deck this weekend and it could not have worked out better. We spent the whole weekend working in the backyard because the weather was perfectly perfect.

We added a few more plants to the new butterfly garden, replaced some jasmine plants that didn’t make it through the winter, and I found two new hydrangeas that I wanted in my newly made flowerbed…a pink one and a pretty blue one.

Sunday evening rolled around and we threw some steaks on the barbeque and got out the chair cushions for the deck chairs. All was going well. The kids lit the tiki torches just fine and we went inside to grab a few more things for the table. My youngest son went out on the deck and discovered that one of the torches had completely lit on fire. My husband, who is a firefighter, was so calm and ran over to try to put it out. The older children ran and got the garden hose and put the flames out.

So after the excitement died down, we really did have an enjoyable meal. The sky was beautiful and air was warm. It felt so nice to be outdoors together enjoying a nice dinner.

Here is the sky on this beautiful spring day.

Here are a few more photos from the week’s nature time.

Figs are on the tree already!

Our sunflowers have sprouted it seems like overnight and we are going to have a bumper crop.

We also continued our tree study in the woods but we are going to also pick a tree in our backyard to use for the seasonal Green Hour Challenge, more on that in another entry.

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Barb — 5 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #11 Year-Long Tree Study

If you have been following along with the challenges and you picked a focus way back in challenge number four, you should be just about ready to wrap up your first focus study. Our family has been learning about garden flowers but we are soon going to switch over to wildflowers. (This is going along with my son’s study of Kingdom plantae in biology.)

This is a good time to start a seasonal tree study. You will be picking a tree in your yard or neighborhood that you could “adopt” for a year to observe and record the changes in each season. I encourage everyone to start their year long tree study with the group this week. This part of the challenge should take one week to complete and then in our next challenge we will be starting a group focus study of wildflowers or garden flowers.

Please Note:If your family is enjoying your current focus, you do not need to switch but you can follow your own path and keep us posted.

Observing our tree Fall 2007

Outdoor Hour Challenge #11
Begin a Four Season Tree Study

1. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 622-623. Also read page 625, Spring Work. After reading, turn to the table of contents, to the tree section, and read the list of trees covered in this book. If possible, pick a tree from the list that you have in your yard, on your street, or in a near-by park that you can observe over the course of the next year. My boys and I have been working on a tree study with an oak tree since August 2007. The changes in the tree have given us something to study in each season. If you live in a more exotic location, like some participants who live in Australia, Brazil, or Spain, do your best to compare your tree to a similar tree in the Handbook of Nature Study. Many of the observations can be used to study a variety of trees.

Before heading out for your nature study time, read the introductory section for your focus tree with your children. Make sure to read the observation suggestions for your particular tree and keep these in mind as you go out to make your observations. You will be challenged in each season of the coming year to make an observation for your tree and record any changes. I have prepared a journal page to record your observations. See the end of the blog entry for a link to the journal page.

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to study the tree you are going to observe over the next year. We took photos of our tree to put in our nature journal or you can sketch them right into your journal. Keep in mind the suggestions for observation that you read in the Handbook of Nature Study. If you have younger children, just spend your time observing your tree and helping them to look at it closely.

3. Add anything new to your list of items observed in your focus area (challenge #4) that you are keeping in your nature journal. Make note of any additional research that needs to be done to follow up interest found during your Outdoor Hour.

4. Complete the Seasonal Tree Study journal page with your child. Place the page in your nature notebook to have for comparison in the next seasonal tree challenge.

You can purchase all of the first ten challenges in a convenient ebook along with custom notebook pages.

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Red-Winged Blackbird on a Spring Day

Red-winged blackbird
You can click the link above and read about this bird and also there is a link to hear his song.

If you click this photo to make it larger, you will notice his little beak is open. He was singing up a storm for us.

Here he is landing in the rushes alongside the pond area at the nursery.

We were out at the nursery on Saturday and the meadow and pond area were full of these beautiful blackbirds. I was able to capture this particular bird by creeping as close as I could and then taking lots of photos. 🙂

The Handbook of Nature Study has a whole section on red-winged blackbirds so I was able to learn a lot about them from Anna Comstock’s easy to read narrative. The section starts on page 117.

“The red-winged blackbird lives in the marshes where it builds its nest. However, it comes over to our plowed lands and pastures and helps the farmer by destroying many insects which injure the meadows, crops, and trees.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 119

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

More Reptiles to Identify: Arizona Style

I am still struggling with my disgust of reptiles. Lizards are becoming a bit more palatable but as far as snakes go, I’m still struggling.

Good thing for me that we saw mostly lizards on our trip to Arizona.

On pages 210 to 213 of the Handbook of Nature Study there are many lizards and their descriptions listed. I think on page 213 that number 7 looks surprisingly like the lizards we saw in the photo below.

I did recognize this reptile but only was able to capture his hind end as he scurried under a rock. He was definitely some kind of iguana.

These two photos were taken while we were at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. They had an enclosure where they used to have a bear but the bear has since been retired to a more comfortable place on the grounds. The enclosure did have these interesting, if not rather large, reptiles inhabiting it.

Climbing up the rocks

This guy was also at the museum and was making his way across the riparian habitat.

Now for something pretty to look at. I can only take reptiles for so long and then I need something colorful and beautiful to enjoy.

Close up of the spines

Are you proud of me? We are still working on identifying the reptiles for their nature journals but we are learning a lot along the way.

Posted on April 15, 2008 by Barb — Leave a comment

Our Small Square: Outdoor Hour Challenge #9

We had a chance today to enjoy the spring weather and complete our small square project. My son picked the spot and marked it out for us. Right away he picked the big objects out but I challenged him to list all the small items he found in his square. He used his magnifying glass and we used a small stick to dig around in the dirt a bit and we found a few things to be interested in.

We found quite a few of these clusters from the tree near the square. I suspect they are full of pollen since I noticed when they are on the tree that they send off little “puffs” of something every so often in the breeze.

Then we found some of these little plants that are not grass or dandelions.

A few misc. seeds were underneath the leaves in our square and we have no idea what kind they are.

We both enjoyed digging around in the soil and we did see one small ant.

Here is his journal entry for the day.

We are both interested to identify the tree that the clusters came from so that is our assignment for the next week. It is hard to identify since it currently has very small leaves and doesn’t look anything like the tree we see in the summer.

That was our Outdoor Hour assignment this week, nothing fancy right in our own yard but still very interesting.

Posted on April 13, 2008 by Barb — Leave a comment

Desert Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge #8

Here is our family’s Outdoor Hour Challenge #8.

We just returned from our week long adventure in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. It was so surprising to find so much life and color and activity in this part of our world. If anyone says there is nothing to do for nature study in the desert, I can now whole-heartedly disagree. We spent every waking minute in the great outdoors exploring the fascinating world of the desert, even in a sudden desert rainstorm and at sunrise. We were hiking in Saguaro National Park just about everyday and found that we grew to love this place.

If you have been reading my blog this week, you will have seen some of the more interesting plants and birds that we have encountered. I will be posting more over there in the weeks to come.

Before we left for our adventure, the boys and I read several books to prepare us for what we would be seeing up close and personal. The most interesting and recognizable plant in the Sonoran Desert is the saguaro cactus. (pronounced sa wah ro) This cactus is a whole ecosystem in itself and we were able to observe the many phases of its growth while on our trip.

Here is a landscape with the saguaro sticking up prominently.
The saguaro grows very tall and provides shade for itself with its spines and grooves.

It also provides homes for birds like the cactus wren and the gila woodpecker. They make their nests inside the saguaro. Here is a photo where you can see the nest holes.

Here is a gila woodpecker sitting on the saguaro and if you look closely, you will see a sparrow in a nest hole near the top of the saguaro.

Here is a close up of the cactus itself.

We enjoyed a sunrise walk in the desert and the colors and sounds are not soon to be forgotten.

There are so many things to tell you about from this trip but I will narrow this entry down to the saguaro cactus. Maybe later this week I will share all the many other birds that we encountered. I have some awesome hummingbird photos to share and some others that will surprise you that we found in our desert wanderings.

We did some close up work last week at home for this challenge with our hand lens. The most interesting thing we found was looking at the bark of our cedar tree…..there is so many interesting things in there like spider webs and egg sacs. If you didn’t get a chance to use your hand lens last week, I encourage you to take a few minutes this week to give it a try.

Author: Barb