Inside Preparation Work:
- Read pages 755 and 758 in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson #214).
- View some images of feldspar so you know what you are looking for during your outdoor time.
- You may wish to purchase a piece of feldspar to observe in person and then use your outdoor time to look for any rocks you can find in your local area this season. You can find them in most rock shops or online in rock collections.
- Common feldspar minerals: Amazonite and Labradorite and Sunstone (Oregon’s state gem).
- Advanced Study: Complete some research on the uses of feldspar before your outdoor time this week. What is Feldspar? and Feldspars.
Outdoor Hour Time:
- Go exploring for rocks. Bring along a collecting box or bag and see if you can find some rocks, particularly granite that may have some feldspar in it that you can see.
- Collect some samples to bring inside to look at closely.
- Note: If you weather or local conditions do not all you to collect rocks this week, plan on spending even just a few minutes outdoors this week observing anything interesting you have at hand. Save the rock observations for a time that is more convenient.
Follow-Up Activity:
- Choose one of the rocks you collected outdoors and look at it closely using a hand lens. If you collected some granite, can you distinguish the various components? Record your observations in your nature journal.
- Use the Rocks Up Close activity to take a closer look at any rocks you have on hand.
- Advanced study: Use a rock identification key to identify any rocks you did collect this week.
- Advanced study: Create a nature journal page for feldspar or any of the feldspar minerals. Use a rock field guide from your personal or public library.
Join us for this series of challenges every week here on the Handbook of Nature Study.
If you want to purchase the Winter Nature Study Continues ebook so you can follow along with all the notebooking pages, coloring pages, and subject images, you can join the Ultimate or Journey Membership Levels. See the Join Us page for complete information. Also, you can view the Winter Nature Study Continues Ebook Announcement page for more details.
Hello 🙂
I’ve been trying to subscribe to your blog, but I get a message that says “contact website owner” when I enter my email. I hope it’s a temporary glitch, but I thought I’d let you know.
Thank you so much for your hard work – I have subscribed off and on for years for the kids – this time – it’s for me! Many thanks –
Penny
I should mention that I’m not on FB or Twitter or any of those, so email is my only way of following you – if that’s no longer a viable option, that’s ok, but maybe that’s why? Just a thought. I can enjoy your blog without a subscription (obviously), I just won’t be able to get the newsletter. If you even still do those? I’m a little behind the times… (and usually happy to be there!)
I have put a temporary email sign up on the right side of the page, next to the entries and not in the header. I don’t know what is going on with the original signup spot but I will have to shoot an email over to my web designer to see if he can fix it. In the meantime, let me know if the other box works for you.
It worked! Thank you so much, I am delighted!
Enjoy your day 🙂 And thanks again –
Penny