Barb, Author at Homeschool Nature Study

Posted on February 17, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #1: Nature Walk Notes

We successfully completed Outdoor Hour Challenge #1 yesterday. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a nature hike. I had seen a sign a couple miles from our house that looked like it was the beginning of a trailhead. How could I have never put the effort into stopping and finding out before? It seems strange that such a gorgeous trail could be that close to my house and we had never walked it before. The Green Hour Challenge put it into my head to go ahead and give it a try. Here are a few photos of things we saw.

Delicate lavender flowers among miner’s lettuce.

Ferns lined the trail on the way down the canyon.

I have no idea what this bloom is but it was so unusual that I decided to try to identify it when we got home. Did you see the insect on it?
After we hiked this trail a bit we made our way back to the car and went down to the river to explore.

So here are some rocks along the river’s edge. We decided that this week we are going to try to identify the pink and the green rocks in this photo. I have an idea of what they are but we are going to do some research and find out for sure.

Here is another shot of the green rock.

Here is a photo of the American River where we spent some time on our Green Hour Challenge. Can you believe this river flows about 4 miles away from our front door?

Who can go to the river without throwing a few rocks in?

It was getting late but we were enjoying ourselves so much that we lost track of time. The dog in this photo just appeared at the river’s edge and convinced the boys to throw some sticks into the water so he could jump in and fetch them. My boys loved this added feature of our nature walk. 🙂

So that ends our first Outdoor Hour Challenge. I got my reading done (I’ve read it before but I took the time to reread it.) We spent our time walking outdoors together. We found two things to investigate further. We had a wonderful time.

Success.

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Barb — 100 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #1: Let’s Get Started

Outdoor Hour Challenge #1
Let’s Get Started!

1. Read pages 1-8 of the Handbook of Nature Study.
Sections to read:
“What Nature Study Is” through “Nature Study in the Schoolroom“.

Highlight or underline anything that you as the nature study teacher find will help you in your guiding your children. If you read a sentence that you agree with, mark it so you will remember to come back to it when you need some encouragement.

2. “In nature-study the work begins with any plant or creature which chances to interest the pupil.” So here is your challenge this week. Spend 10-15 minutes outdoors with your children, even if it is really cold and yucky. Bundle up if you need to. Take a walk around your yard or down your own street. Enjoy being outdoors. After you come inside, sit the children down and ask them one at a time to tell you something that they saw on their walk. Ask them what was interesting to them. Maybe they picked up a leaf or a stick and brought it back indoors and now they can really take a look at it. Make a big deal about whatever it is that they talk about.

3. After your discussion, come up with two things to investigate further. For instance, if they saw a bird on their walk and they came inside and talked about it, ask them if they want to know more about that bird. You have a whole week to spend some time looking it up. Maybe they found an acorn or a berry on a bush that they were interested in. That could be your focus for the week.

4. After your nature study time with the children, pull out your Handbook of Nature Study and see if the item the children are interested in is listed in the index. If it is, look up the information for yourself and then relate interesting facts to the children sometime during the next week.
Charlotte Mason knew what she was talking about when it came to nature study. Somehow in our modern life we have forgotten the simple pleasures of outdoor time. For this challenge, just go for a walk. Don’t worry about taking any tools or supplies with you. Enjoy the outdoors and your children and then spend some time talking about your experiences together.

Getting Started Outdoor Hour Challenge ebook

This challenge is part of the Getting Started ebook that is available with every level of membership. In the ebook you will find the same instructions but custom notebook pages to use in your nature journal.

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Winter Nature Walk-Boy’s View

I was sick with the flu this weekend so my boys decided yesterday afternoon to talk a walk without me….the afternoon was bright and sunny in between a cloudy morning and a snowy evening.

Here are some photos they took on their walk to share with me when they returned home.

Love the sky in this one!

Here is a view coming down the walking trail with a beautiful perspective of someone’s house with a horse in the yard. (click to make the photo larger and you will see the black horse by the house)

That fits our mammal study. We haven’t ever really learned about horses but we can now in the Handbook of Nature Study on pages 274-280.

Anna Botsford Comstock says:“Begin this study of the horse with stories of wild horses.”

I have the whole collection of Marguerite Henry books on my shelf and I don’t think my boys have ever read them. I know we read Brighty of the Grand Canyon on a road trip to the Grand Canyon but other than that, they have not tasted the delights of King of the Wind, Misty-Stormy’s Foal, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, or any of the other wonderful books about horses that I read as a child. I need to dust those off and encourage the boys to read them. You can see my sidebar to find some of these wonderful horse stories that you can use along with your nature study with your children.

One last photo from their walk. Here is the llama that I have shared before but this time he was way down by the fence so the boys could take a photo of his head peeking out from the bushes.

Even though I didn’t get to go with boys on their walk, I did get to enjoy the stories and the photos.

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Barb — 8 Comments

Winter Wildflowers: Violets

This week as part of the Winter Wildflower blog-a-thon at Wildflower Morning, we were asked to come up with some literary connection to wildflowers. I remembered that I had just the thing for this entry.

I recently read a really interesting book about flowers. 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names by Diana Wells was a quick, fun read and was packed full of interesting tidbits about how both garden and wildflowers got their names.

According to the author about the violet:
Common Names: Violet, pansy, heart’s-ease, Johnny-jump-up, love in idleness
Botanical Name: Viola

She also relates the story of how violets became associated with love. Let’s just say it has something to do with the Greek gods Zeus, Hera, and a heifer.

She includes literary connections to violets by referring to works that violets play a part in like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She also relates a story about violets that has to do with Napoleon.

“When Napoleon was banished to Elba, he said he would ‘return with the violets.’ When he did return, Josephine was dead, and he picked violets from her grave before being exiled again to St. Helena. They were found in a locket, along with a lock of hair, when he died.”

We are going to keep this little book handy as we enter the spring term and our study of garden flowers. Each flower has a small illustration at the beginning of the chapter. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in short accounts for many common flowers. I got my book on bookmooch.com but you can find it used on amazon.com for less than a dollar.

Some other flowers included in the book: dahlia, daffodil, daylily

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Barb — 3 Comments

Winter Wildflower Identified: California Wild Radish

Thanks to my blog reader, Shelly, I have now been able to identify my winter wildflower as California Wild radish. (see my original entry) I appreciate all her efforts to help me figure out what my find was. When I had originally observed this plant from 60 mph along the freeway, I did think it was mustard. It wasn’t until I got out of the car and looked up close at it that I realized that it wasn’t just yellow like mustard and that the flowers were very different and a variety of colors. The article that I linked to above explains that many times it is mistaken for mustard.
California Wild Radish (Raphanus raphanistrum)

More interesting reading on the California Wild Radish. This will fit in with our current study of biology very nicely. I love it when we can make connections like that.

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

Snowshoe Adventure: Tahoe Snowshoe Hare

This was an outdoor weekend spent in the Sierras. We spent an afternoon taking a hike on snowshoes. It looks really cold and dreary in this photo but it was really not all that cold…above freezing by a few degrees. I could have done with a few less layers. 🙂 I took off my gloves for awhile and that helped. Most people we saw on the trail were on cross country skis but we enjoyed the crunch, crunch , crunch of snowshoes. I was on the lookout for mammal tracks.

We saw lots of canine tracks beside the trail but as we worked our way up from the lake into the conifers, we were rewarded with these tracks.

In this area there were many little “rabbit trails” giving us a clue as to what sort of mammal was in the area. I came home and discovered that they are more than likely Tahoe Snowshoe Hare tracks. (Lepus americanus tahoensis) See snowshoe hare.

We are new to identifying tracks so if anyone thinks they are from a different animal, please leave me a comment.

Not only did we see some mammal tracks but we were treated to a “new to us” bird. The red-breasted nuthatch. He was seen clinging to the side of this pine, sticking his head into little holes looking for some bark insects. He moved easily in all directions while clinging to the bark. Amazing.

Red-breasted nuthatch

I was busy taking photos when a bunch of ducks flew into view. We saw them later eating some seeds that a fellow hiker had left along the shore. They were later joined by a few Canadian geese.

So I think we had a successful outing….we did manage to find some mammal tracks in the snow and that was our aim.

From the Handbook of Nature Study, page 217,
” An interesting relative of the cottontail is the varying hare or snow-show rabbit that lives in the wooded regions of north-eastern North America. Of all animals he is one of the most defenseless; foxes, mink, and other flesh-eating inhabitants of the woods find him an easy prey. He has not even a burrow to flee to when pursued by his enemies…..He has one important advantage over his enemies: twice each year his heavy coat of fur is shed. In the summer the coat is a reddish brown that so blends with his surroundings that he is hardly noticeable; in the winter it is perfectly white so that against a background of snow he is nearly invisible.”

Anna Botsford Comstock has included pages 215-219 with information on the cotton-tailed rabbit. I found these pages very useful in coming up with a way to study our snowshoe hare. Even though the information doesn’t completely apply to our hare, we can adapt her activities to our study.

Winter nature study at its best.

Posted on January 23, 2008 by Barb — 10 Comments

Winter Wildflowers: I Can’t Believe It

(You can click on any photo to make it larger.)

Wildflower Morning is sponsoring a winter wildflower blog-a-thon and this week we were challenged to find a wildflower that blooms in winter. I thought this was a pretty daunting task considering it has been snowing off and on for a few weeks here in our area of northern California.

But I was so surprised on Monday when my husband and I were driving down the mountain and I actually saw some areas with wildflowers blooming right along the road. I had to go back with my camera and take some photos for you all to see. It actually started hailing on me while I was shooting these photos and my husband thought I was a little crazy for sticking it out.

I think I was a little wildflower starved because I took a lot of photos. I want to thank Elizabeth Joy for sponsoring this event. If I hadn’t had the challenge on my mind, I might have missed noticing these beautiful wildflowers. I had my eyes open and alert the last few days searching for something to photograph. I was rewarded for my diligence. Scroll down after the wildflower photos, you will see the added gift I was given while I was photographing the flowers.

I have yet to identify the flowers so I will come back and edit if I come up with something. I tried for about an hour with my field guide and the internet and didn’t come up with a name. I am sure someone knows what they are…..pretty much the same, just different colors.

I look forward to seeing everyone’s winter wildflowers.

Posted on January 15, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

Bird’s Nests in Winter: We Found One!

(click to make the photos larger)

Here is the whole nest that we found under a tree in our front yard. It is amazingly made with small little twigs and hair. Here is a close-up.

I have no idea what kind of bird made this nest. We do know we have a scrub jay that nests in this tree but this is so small it can’t possibly be the jay’s.

On page 46 of the Handbook of Nature Study under the sub-heading:The Study of Birds’ Nests in Winter:
“But after the birds have gone to sunnier climes and the empty nests are the only mementos we have of them, then we may study these habitations carefully and learn how to appreciate properly the small architects which made them. I think that every one of us who carefully examines the way that a nest is made must have a feeling of respect for its clever little builder.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Barb — 4 Comments

Looking for Mammal Prints and A New Bird

We have had our eye out for critter prints but the only one we have seen that has been clear enough to really recognize is this dog print along our walking trail. We are not giving up though, the winter is still young.

From the Handbook of Nature Study, page 254:“The dog’s feet are much more heavily padded than those of the cat, because in running he must not stop to save his feet. Hounds often return from a chase with bleeding feet, despite the heavy pads, but the wounds are usually cuts between the toes. The claws are heavy and are not retractile; thus, they afford a protection to the feet when running, and they are also used for digging out game which burrows into the ground. They are not used for grasping prey like those of the cat and are used only incidentally in fighting, while the cat’s claws are the most important weapons in her armory.”
The Handbook of Nature Study has many suggestions for observations of dogs. The section starts on page 254 and ends on page 260.

The most exciting news is that our birdfeeders have been very busy. We even identified a new bird. It was the Cassin’s finch. It looks very much like the purple finch but the coloring on the head is much more pronounced. I also found a great new bird identification site that not only is an online field guide, it also has a button to hear the bird songs online. Eureka! I have wanted to start to learn to identify birds by their songs so this is perfect.

Whatbird.com

Click on the image to make it larger!

Have you ever seen a guard llama? We were out on a new section of our local walking trail and this is the scene that we observed. My son told me that he had seen on a nature show that a llama will actually guard a herd of sheep. I had never heard of this before so I had to come home and research it. He was right! Here is an article that I found on this subject.
Guard Llamas
You learn something new every day.

There is no information in the Handbook of Nature Study on llamas…not surprised at that. There is a section starting on page 270 that talks about sheep.

From page 273:“The dog is the ancient enemy of sheep: and even now, after hundreds of years of domestication, some of our dogs will revert to savagery and chase and kill sheep…..The collie, or sheep dog, has been bred so many years as the special caretaker of sheep, that a beautiful relationship has been established between these dogs and their flocks.”
Well, that sort of catches you up with our nature study for the past week or two. We are still busy catching up on our drawings in our nature journals for animals we have seen. It is a really good activity for these long, cold afternoons.

Posted on December 11, 2007 by Barb — 1 Comment

Cats: Up Close and Personal with Observations #1

The Handbook of Nature Study has lots of interesting things to do to observe your cat or kitten. Many of these activities I hadn’t ever thought about before so I am grateful for the guidance of Anna Botsford Comstock.

On page 265 of HNS:“This lesson may be used in primary grades by asking a few questions at a time and allowing the children to make their observations on their own kittens at home, or a kitten may be brought to school for this purpose. The upper grade work consists of reading and retelling or writing exciting stories of the great, wild, savage cats, like the tiger, lion, leopard, lynx, and panther.”

Page 265 Observation #1:“How much of Pussy’s language do you understand? What does she say when she wishes you to open the door for her? How does she ask for something to eat? What does she say when she feels like conversing with you? How does she cry when hurt? When frightened? What noise does she make when fighting? When calling other cats? What are her feelings when she purrs? When she spits? How many things which you say does she understand?”

Our answers (given by my boys) Our cats give a soft meow when they want to go outside or they just sit by the door and wait. They sit in front of their empty dish and look at you when they wish for something to eat. They will rub up against you or jump up on our lap when they want a little “conversation”. They hiss when they are hurt. The give a pitiful meow when they are frightened. When fighting, they hiss and put their ears down and chase each other through the house. They purr when they are enjoying a good pet and are relaxed. They will come when they are called “kitty”. They come running when they hear the cupboard door open where their food is kept. They will jump down when you say sternly “down”.

I think they did a good job answering the questions.

We will continue next week with our cat activities.

Author: Barb