Additional Activity: Hearts and Trees Digital Camera Fall Scavenger Hunt
Download and complete this fun and easy digital camera scavenger hunt to include in your nature journal. Hearts and Trees (my daughter Amanda) has put together a fun outdoor activity that would make a great family project this week.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #6.Use your time outdoors this week to collect a few things to put on your nature shelf. Start a collection of anything that interests your children. Use the accompanying notebook page to record your collection ideas. You may also want to check out the ideas in this entry: Start a Rock Collection.
You are welcome to submit any of you blog Outdoor Hour Challenge blog entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.
Outdoor Hour Challenge November World Nature Observations
November is a transitional season month in our part of the world…not exactly autumn and not quite winter yet. Use this week’s outdoor time to create an impression of your November World…create word pictures and enjoy the time outside with your children.
November World Notebook Page
(from the November 2011 Newsletter)
Have some fun completing this challenge and then record your November World observations using this simple notebook page.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #2-Using Your Words. Create some lovely word pictures after your outdoor time for this challenge. Use the accompanying notebook page to record your words or use a blank journal page.
If you would like to own this ebook, it is part of the Ultimate Naturalist Library for members. You can find more details on how to get your own membership here: Join Us!
Our our recent camping trip to Yosemite National Park, we made a special effort to really observe the milkweed. This was made lots easier by the fact that there was lots of milkweed in the meadow near the campground.
The real story of the Showy milkweed in the autumn is the way the pods burst open to expose all of the seeds with their silky white hairs. The brown part is the seed and the white part helps the seeds fly away from the plant.
They remind me of dandelions because when you blow on the seeds they scatter to the wind. There are lots and lots of seeds in each pod. The information I read online said that the seeds are very viable and will grow in dry habitats including fields and road sides.
I think the milkweed silky haired seeds are very beautiful…look at them shimmer in the sunshine.
We have one more season to observe before we have seen the complete cycle of this wonderful butterfly attractive plant. I am looking forward to seeing what winter brings.
Autumn Watercolor – Leaves, Clouds, Acorns, or Anything Else
Bring out your watercolors (or watercolor pencils or watercolor crayons) and create a page for your nature journal as part of your Autumn Weather Challenge.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #1.If you haven’t tried any of the Getting Started suggestions yet this season, give Challenge #1 a try…super easy for every family to just take a walk together and then have a follow-up discussion and offer time for a nature journal page. Keep it light and easy.
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 10/30/13.
Fall fun! It is time to really sink our teeth into some fall nature study and start looking for signs of fall. You can use any of the activities listed below to get your Outdoor Hour Challenge started this week.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #8-Using a Magnifying Lens.This is always a great challenge for children to complete…nature study tools make it so much more fun! Don’t forget to pull out the accompanying notebook page for your child to record their findings or they can use a blank page in their nature journal if they wish.
Note for those that coming up on their spring season, you can use the Spring Cattail Study if you would like!
Additional Activity – Cattail Acrostic Poetry Activity
Just for fun, I have created an acrostic poetry notebook page for you to use to go along with your cattail study. For each letter in the word “cattail”, have your child write a word or phrase that describes the cattail. Use the box on the page for a sketch, a rubbing, or a photo. This is meant to be a fun way to extend your cattail study so you might offer to help your child or you can skip it until a future date.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started Ebook, you may wish to completeGetting Started – Challenge #9 Small Square Study. You can use the ideas in this challenge to complete a small square study at your cattail habitat. Use the accompanying notebook page to record your results.
Gigantic Ebook Bundle – Includes My More Nature Study Autumn Outdoor Hour Challenge Ebook! (Also includes 3 of my Harmony Fine Arts Mini-Units.)
This is a fantastic deal for all parents who want an ebook library of resources for all kinds of learning and fun. This ebook Omnibus bundle includes over $590 worth of ebooks for just $25. Act fast because this Omnibus is only going to be available until August 25, 2013…that is next Sunday.
Don’t miss the other nature study related ebooks included in this ebook bundle!
Here are all the ebooks you get with this bundle for $25!
Additional Resources: Codes and Links Provided After Purchase
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Step By Step Instructions for the Outdoor Hour Challenge
Starting September 1, 2013
Receive the monthly newsletter on the 1st of the month (subscribers to the Handbook of Nature Study blog).
In the newsletter, view the printable Challenge Grid for the four topics for the up-coming month. If the topic is from the archives, I provide the link to the challenge on my blog and the link to the ebook it is from if applicable.This way you can prepare for the challenges ahead of time if you wish.
If you own the applicable ebooks, you can open those and print the coordinating notebook pages to use during the month. This is not required but would supplement the current month’s work.
Print and cut out the newsletter Study Grid or other printable for use during the month.
Complete the challenges at your own pace and create your blog entries as you have time.
Submit your blog entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge blog carnival.Become part of the global community of nature study families that participates in the monthly carnival of entries sharing how you spent time outdoors with your family.
Big Picture for the Outdoor Hour Challenge
Seasonal Studies: Each month from September 2013 to August 2014 – I am going to be recycling challenges from the archives, pulling them from older nature study series and ebooks. Each month will not be topical but have a variety of nature study ideas that fit the season (Northern Hemisphere). I will also give you ideas from the Getting Started Ebook if you already own that and would like to use it instead or in addition to the seasonal ebooks.
Monthly Newsletter so you have the topic, the challenge ideas ahead of time, and the newsletter printables. The newsletter is free to all who subscribe to my Handbook of Nature Study blog.
Handbook of Nature Study book by Anna Botsford Comstock – I recommend the edition linked on the sidebar of my blog.
Optional but recommended: The seasonal series or ebook that coordinates with the season we are currently experiencing (see schedule below). All of the challenges are available for free here on the blog (see the seasonal tabs at the top of the blog) but each ebook gathers the challenges and includes coordinating printable notebook pages.
Optional: A copy of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Getting Started ebook. Of course, the challenges in the ebook are available on the Handbook of Nature Study blog for free but if you want the notebook pages you will need to purchase the ebook.
Now that one complete challenge each month is to use the grid study…we are making better use of it as we go about our weekly outdoor time. This week we had tennis plans with some friends at the park and we combined this with some time observing the oak trees that surround the courts.
I brought our tree field guide, our journal supplies, and the tree grid to help us glean more from our observations. There is a picnic bench right under the great big oak that you see in the top image. It is very different from the other oak we observed last week in our backyard. This one has a bunch of large trunks coming up from one spot and reaching out to make a crown.
These acorns are much larger than the ones we have on the California Black Oak tree in our yard. We also noticed that there are two growing together, opposite each other. This was a clue to the identify of the type of oak once we pulled out our field guide.
Here is a photo of the trunk with the bark and woodpecker holes. Which reminds me that I need to add the woodpeckers we saw to our bird list for October. We keep a running list each month of the birds we see and now that we have three year’s worth of data it is interesting to compare.
Under the main tree we saw this new oak sprouting….which technically isn’t part of the tree but we thought it was interesting. Looking at the image now it also shows the dry, brown leaves of this oak tree.
My tree pages using the tree grid and bookmark from the October Newsletter. (Amazon link to journal below)
So then we pulled out our tree field guide (A Field Guide to Western Trees-Peterson Field Guides) and tried to determine just what particular oak we were enjoying at the park on a glorious October afternoon. Turns out it is an Interior Live Oak. We were interested in the fact that the leaves can either be smooth (like ours) or they can be “sharp-toothed”.
So for my nature journal pages for our tree study, I am using the Tree Grid and bookmark from the newsletter, my tree poetry from last Friday’s Using Your Words challenge, and then I will add some additional observations and maybe an image I print our from our photos.
We still have some tasks left from the Tree Study Grid to complete but there is plenty of time in the month to work on them. We have had some debate about which tree is “closest to our house”….it might even mean getting out a measuring tape to have an official closest tree.
I have a nature study group trip this week and I have been gathering some things to take for all of us.
I thought you might like to see what I pack for our group…nothing too exciting.
Colored pencils and Number 2 pencils with erasers
Scissors (for cutting the grids)
Tape
Pencil sharpener (can’t see it in the photo)
Assorted field guides (which I put in my daypack)
A couple of magnifying tools
Clipboards with the study grid (we are going to work on insects on this trip)
Even though we are going to be working on insects, I decided to bring in a few other field guides. We have quite a few lizards right now and I know some of the boys are going to want to chase those. I also always bring a bird field guide since that is one that we always seem to need.
I have gleaned some wonderful ideas from all of you as I watch you work with your grid studies….so many ways to use this simple idea. I hope that showing you a glimpse into our tree grid study will encourage you to give it a try this month or any other month you feel like studying trees.
We have spent quite a number of our outdooor hours observing and learning about oaks. We are blessed with many different kinds of oaks right in our own yard so they are constantly a backdrop for many of our studies. Here is a link to one of our entries that shows the variety we have: Oak Tree Study.
“The California Black Oak is strikingly unlike all other deciduous Oaks in the Golden State, for its broad thin leaves are jaggedly lobed, with the veins running out beyond the leaf margins as fine bristles.”
A Natural History of Western Trees.
We have noticed the woodpeckers that enjoy the tall branches, the Scrub jays that frequent the crown, and we are even thinking this is the tree that the bats use for shelter…not sure. It is a truly abundant food source for much of our local wildlife, including bears.
“…it has one admiring friend, the California woodpecker, who finds its acorns, bitter to our palates, exactly to his taste….This handsome redhead devours what he can hold of acorns, and lays up great stores of them, like a squirrel.”
There is always something to learn and to make note of as we revisit even a common tree to our area.
We are looking forward to observing:
The yellow leaves of autumn and then seeing the bare branches.
The dropping of acorns.
Finding a California Black Oak with acorn holes.
In the spring, pink or crimson of the new foliage.
Another successful oak tree study….thanks to our ability to see beyond the ordinary.
Printable notebook page for Extraordinary in the Ordinary.
book by Anna Botsford Comstock – I recommend the edition linked on the sidebar of my blog.
) and tried to determine just what particular oak we were enjoying at the park on a glorious October afternoon. Turns out it is an .JPG)
