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Fungus and Fern Hikes: Our Outdoor Hour Challenge #41

We have been on the lookout for mushrooms and ferns for the last few weeks in anticipation of this challenge. I am overwhelmed with how much I don’t know about mushrooms at this point but I am determined to document the mushrooms and other fungus that we see so that when I have a cold winter day and I want to spend some time with a field guide, I will be able to flip through the photos and hopefully come up with names for them.

I decided that there are so many photos that I would make a slideshow on Flickr.com to share with you. The fungi are from three different places but the majority are from my own yard or from a hike within three miles of my house. The others are from the Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Mushroom Slideshow– Don’t miss viewing this page with all my fungus images

As we hiked yesterday, I noticed that the boys were catching sight of more and more varieties of mushrooms than ever before. They even spotted some that I didn’t see and directed me to go back to the spot and take a photo. 🙂

This particular hike they were having a good time in the cool fresh air together.

If you look carefully up over the trail where the boys are hiking, you will notice a tree that broke off and is just barely hanging in place. The boys thought they should try to throw rocks at it to see if they could get it to come down but my husband explained that he didn’t think that was a really great idea.

I noticed that I was getting into quite a few sticker type seeds as we walked along.

We hiked back to the top and noticed that the moon was up over the oaks. What a great blue sky, don’t you think?

So I am still getting used to my new little camera but I think I will like it in the long run. It has a better zoom and the viewing screen is much bigger.

Here are the last of the photos for today.

Backside of a fern
Big ferns along the path.

Ferns along the side of a gully that will have a creek running in it once it rains again around here. 🙂

Here is my son’s mushroom diagram for his nature journal. We copied this out of the Handbook of Nature Study, page 719.

This was a great challenge for our family and we never dreamed we would find so many different kinds of mushrooms and other fungi to study.

I encourage you all to give the challenge a try either now or when your weather is cooperating.

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Nature Study is Not a Drill: How I Learn to Be Flexible


“If nature study is made a drill, its pedagogic value is lost. When it is properly taught, the child is unconscious of mental effort or that he is suffering the act of teaching. As soon as nature study becomes a task, it should be dropped; but how could it ever be a task to see that the sky is blue, or the dandelion golden, or to listen to the oriole in the elm!”
Handbook of Nature Study page 6

I know our family would never keep up our interest in learning about the world around us if it wasn’t something we enjoyed. I do think that it takes just one person to get excited about something and then everyone seems to catch the excitement.

I am sometimes that person but more and more it is the boys who are finding and exploring and drawing my attention to things that they see as they are outside. I have learned to follow their lead.

It is a little uncomfortable to just allow things to happen in nature study. There is always the risk that what interests your children will not be something you are interested in or that you know anything about. I can’t tell you how many times that happens in our family. Gradually I have learned the value in allowing some leeway in the topics we learn more about because I can see the growth in my sons’ love for and connection to the world they live in. I hear their appreciation for the complex system of life that was created for us to enjoy and benefit from.

Here is a real life example:
Most of you know we went to Oregon last month as a family vacation and as a way to learn more about marine biology. I had prepared these wonderful notebooks all about invertebrates that inhabit the tidepools of the Oregon coast. Great plan…or so I thought.

As the trip progressed I realized that the children were more interested in marine mammals than in invertebrates. Had I brought a book on marine mammals? Nope. I started to feel a rise of panic as we hit the third day and I was still fascinated by the sea stars and anemones in the tidepools and they were busy finding sea lion bones, watching sea otters play in the water, and sea lions on the rocks.

We decided to stop and go down into the sea cave along the Oregon coast where the Stellar sea lions winter over. The boys were excited to take the elevator down to this cave that is said to be one of the largest sea caves in the world, twelve stories high.

There were no sea lions in the cave at this time of year but pretty soon they will all be back inside after having time out at sea to bulk up for the winter. It was still a fascinating place and the boys were grateful we were willing to stop and pay the price of admission.

I could have made them go along with the original plan but it became clear that this was their experience on this trip. They had seen sea stars before and anemones were cool but they didn’t do too much to really observe. What they wanted was to watch the playful antics of the sea otters and sea lions and harbor seals.

Switching gears happened and by the time we reached Newport and the Oregon Coast Aquarium, they were primed to actually stop and read the signs and information on the displays for the marine mammals. We had printed out the aquarium guide ahead of time and this helped them to go on their own through the aquarium. This was a first for our family. The boys went on their own and my husband and I enjoyed the aquarium by ourselves.

We met three times during the day and each time they were full of things they wanted to talk about and to actually take us to see. The last hour was spent with the boys being the tour guide through the aquarium showing us their favorite things.

Number one on their list were the sea otters. They could have filled a whole research report with the observations they had made watching the sea otters play and be fed and then groom themselves. It was a big lesson for me. They obviously had spent quite a bit of time at the sea otter tank just watching and joyfully getting to know this wonderful creature.

I hope that you will learn from my experience. Nature study can become totally driven by the teacher and become a chore and a drill or it can be a source of excitement and joy as you explore and learn together.

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Sitka Spruce in Oregon: Outdoor Hour Challenge #37

Sitka Spruce

We had our eyes open for a spruce when we were traveling in Oregon and we discovered that the Sitka spruce was in just about every campground that we stayed in this time around.

The cones are interesting and the tree itself is very pretty. If you look closely at this photo, you will see the cones hanging on the branch.

One night we had our tent under a spruce and a storm blew in after we had crawled into our sleeping bags. The trees howled and the rain poured and it was sort of a wild night. In the morning the rain had stopped but we still had the drip, drip of the raindrops from the tree falling on our tent. We at first thought it was still raining until we unzipped the rain fly and realized the sun was peeking out and our “rain” was really just left over drops coming from the spruce.

I guess that’s what happens when you go camping in Oregon during the month of October.

Here are some other photos from that trip that are interesting.

I think this is the perfect mushroom. We saw lots of these when we were hiking and they were something new to me. I think this sparked my interest in “flowerless plants” so that is why they are going to be included for a few weeks in the Outdoor Hour Challenges. The boys and I would like to learn a bit more about mushrooms.


These two are such great travelers. Can I just say now how grateful I am to be able to homeschool them through high school? I think that so many of us get overwhelmed at the idea of homeschooling in the teen years but this is the best part of the whole experience. It is hard, don’t get me wrong. But here we are on a school day in October, standing and taking in the fresh ocean air and the peace of the moment. Right after this they had to find a way to hike down and throw some rocks in the water. There actually was a trail if you looked hard enough. Of course there was some sort of sea cave and that spurred on some more discussion about the power of waves.


This photo shows that not all our time outdoors has to be about nature study. We actually do spend time just throwing the frisbee around the campsite. That is a spruce tree in the background.

Here is something interesting from our trip as well and it tied into our study of trees during this time.

One campground we stayed at in Northern California had a recreated Native American village. This is one of the structures that was a family dwelling and the boys were fascinated by the circular door openings. This area was inhabited by the Yurok tribe and the buildings were all built of local redwoods.


Here is the sweat house in the village. They actually still use this for ceremonial activities.


I am not sure what kind of tree this is but I thought it was just so interesting growing right there out of the cliff along the Pacific Ocean. It was just so nice to look at and enjoy as we took in the horizon.

Okay, enough about trees. This was a great challenge for us and I know I had the advantage of knowing ahead of time that we needed to be looking for spruce trees. Challenge #38 is going to take some ingenuity to find an elm, hickory, or chestnut tree. We are up to the challenge though.

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Bored in Nature

“Some children are born naturalists, but even those who aren’t were born with natural curiosity about the world and should be encouraged to observe nature.”
Charlotte Mason, vol 2 page 58

“They get so used to reading about marvels of nature and never seeing it for themselves that nothing interests them. The way to cure this is to let them alone for awhile and then start something totally different. It’s not the children’s fault that nature bores them; they are naturally curious and eager to explore the world and everything in it. There’s a poem that says that the person who can best appreciate God is the one who is familiar with the natural world He made.”
Charlotte Mason, vol 2 page 6

Sometimes, despite all my efforts, my boys just are not as interested in nature study as I am. I can take them to the most fascinating places to explore and they just want to sit and talk or take a walk by themselves. The setting is perfect and the subjects abound but they are more interested in throwing rocks or digging a hole.

I can’t force them to be interested when this happens.

How have we learned to handle this? I allow them the space and time to experience nature on their own terms.

It may look like they are not taking much interest but later on when we are driving in the car or talking at the dinner table, they relate things that they noticed as they had a little freedom.

They learned a lot about the properties of bullwhip seaweed as they tried to use it to tie the driftwood together for this beach structure.

They experienced the redwood forest on their own terms as they searched out Big Foot beyond every bend in the trail.

On every beach they made circles in the sand. It became a tradition.

Nature study does not always go according to my plan. I have learned to keep my options open and let things happen as the day unfolds. Honestly, I learn more as well because they most likely will find something that I wouldn’t because they have their own eyes. My eyes see one thing and they see something completely different if I allow them the space and time to find what interests them in our nature study.

More Nature Study Book 3 Cover image

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Aspen Trees in the Fall-Salmon-And a Bear

What a wonderful afternoon drive we had yesterday! The fall colors were popping out all around us and we were pointing out the car windows, totally amazed at the colorful show we could see as we drove along.

The aspens were glorious and the sun even made a brief showing in the late afternoon.Walking along the path under the aspens, I remembered why I love this variety of tree.

Here is our regular stretch of beach at the lake. We indulged in a picnic dinner of roast chicken and salad and then realized that we were all alone at the beach for the first time ever. It was quiet except for the Stellar’s jays.

The three boys were erecting driftwood and rock sculptures while the rest of us took a walk out onto the dock. The sun was beginning to set and we very reluctantly started back to the car.

Earlier in the afternoon, we also went to see the Kokanee salmon spawning in the creek and these signs were something new in the last few weeks. Apparently there are three mama bears with cubs in this area and they are feasting on salmon during the spawning period.

While we were observing the salmon in the creek….a bear was spotted on the opposite side of the water. The bear was totally and completely uninterested in us humans and she went about its business of eating and foraging around in the bushes. We did get a really great view of the bear and I was too busy watching her to take a photo. I do not have a very good zoom on my little camera so it would probably not have turned out very well anyway. Take my word for it, this was not a scary encounter at all. There were a lot of salmon to occupy the bear and a lot of water inbetween us. We watched for a few minutes and then hiked along the path.

There is nothing mentioned in the Handbook of Nature Study about the salmon but I was surprised to find a section on goldfish. I read over the observation suggestions and they were quite good so we will be including a study of our goldfish when the weather is too yucky to go outside. There is always some way to fit nature study in if you are diligent.


We found a lot of interesting feathers on this hike. I love this polka dotted one the best. I am guessing it is a woodpecker feather but I am not sure.

“The color of feathers and often their shape make some birds more beautiful; while in others, the color of the feathers serves to protect them from the observation of their enemies.”
Handbook of Nature Study, pages 31-32 about feathers as ornaments

What a great day for a family drive, hike, and picnic.

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Coastal Marine Biology: Family Style at the Tidepools

We were able to fit in some time at the tide pools along the Oregon Coast. We have started a study of marine biology this year and it was a perfect time to investigate up close the life in these pockets of water and at the rocky shore line.

The first thing we learned was that we needed to know the high and low tides for each day. It made a big difference in what we would see. One day we timed it just right and we found ourselves all alone at a great area of tide pools.

There had been a storm during the night before and the area was covered in seaweed. The whole beach area was filled in with piles of kelp….mostly bullwhip kelp.

The boys quickly learned how to look carefully in and around the crevices of the rocks for interesting things to view.

We saw anemones.

Hermit Crabs

Snails.

Sea Stars

Periwinkles

Someone in our family got wet because he was not paying attention to the waves coming in. I thought he was going to be stranded out on the rocks but he made it in safely……a little wet though. If you look closely in the photo above, you can see him way out on the rocks.

We all learned so much from this experience and now when we read in our textbook about marine life, we have a better understanding of just what they are talking about.

The Handbook of Nature Study has a few pages of information about marine invertebrates. Page 418 talks about shells of Florida and the East Coast and page 430 has a little information on seashore creatures.

After our tidepool adventure, the boys decided to build a structure with driftwood, rocks, and seaweed. This became a tradition on this trip and they came up with very elaborate ways to build on the beach.

Great memories and a lot of learning.

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Marine Invertebrates Notebooking Pages

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Family Outdoor Hour: California and Oregon Coast


All photos from Patrick’s Point State Park, California

Patrick’s Point State Park

Some of our Outdoor time this week was spent at the ocean. We took a few days and drove along the California and Oregon coast enjoying the views and the outdoor life that early October allows. We were sprinkled on a few times but nothing that really dampened our spirits too much. We had anticipated the weather and came equipped.


Our first beachcombing adventure gave us some things to be excited about. We saw three sea otters in the surf playing and diving as we watched. Then out past the waves, we saw another creature pop up….a sea lion. He didn’t come too close but we had a clear view of him from the shore.


We hiked around the cove a bit from where we were camping and found lots of interesting items. We saw several colors of sea stars, some brightly colored crabs, some bones, and lots of sea kelp.


The beach was covered in an area of rocks and this area is known for its agates. We joined in the hunt for our favorites and soon had a whole collection in dad’s sweatshirt pocket.


We also found this driftwood with barnacles on it which was interesting to me at the time but now that I zoom in on the photo, I realize there was a creature on the driftwood too….don’t know what it is.

On the hike back up the trail from the beach, I was able to spot two new plants to identify. One is twinberry

and the other is pearly everlasting.

We had a fantastic time on the beach and there were so many things to explore.

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Land of Oaks and Pines Part Two-Connections to the Past: Outdoor Hour Challenge #33

We have a variety of oaks in our yard and on closer inspection, we have a lot of baby oak trees as well. The more we looked, the more seedlings we found to observe.

I pulled some out for us to examine the roots….they were really long.

Here is the oak seedling we pulled out and you could still see the remains of the original acorn too. Just what I need, an oak tree growing under the magnolia tree. Crazy thing is that I know how this acorn ended up far from the mother oak. Western scrub jays will poke acorns into the garden in various spots as a means of storage. They will not come back and find all the acorns and that allows a new tree to sprout far from the original oak.


Here is another kind of oak growing in the backyard.

We collected a number of leaves to examine indoors and to try to identify which kinds of oaks we have in the backyard.The different shapes of leaves were interesting to note. We had big leaves and little leaves. They were shiny or dull, pointed or rounded, and in a variety of shades of greens.


Here is the collection.


California Black Oak-leaves are really large and have deep lobes and bristle tips


Either Interior Live Oak or Canyon Live Oak-I need to go do some more close observation of the trunks and acorns


I am pretty sure this is a Valley Oak.

I can not believe there are so many different kinds of oaks right here in our backyard. We are literally surrounded by oaks. I didn’t even collect leaves from all of them. I know we have a California Scrub Oak in the far back of the property.

Now for the great acorns we collected at my parent’s house. Look at that big guy. He is a beauty. I am fairly certain it came from an Interior Live Oak tree.

The Native Americans in our area used the acorns as a staple in their diet. They collected the acorns and stored them in granaries. They would grind the acorns up to make a flour. Here is a link that explains it simply. The Indian Grinding Rock State Park is near where I live and it is a fascinating place to visit to get an idea of how the acorn was used by the Miwok Indians. Actually there is a place on the creek near my parent’s house that has grinding rocks that were used by the Miwok that inhabited the area before the California Gold Rush. The oak trees were a vital part of their lives.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2009/10/outdoor-hour-challenge-autumn-series_09.html

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Slow Start to Our Tree Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge #31

Our start on our study of trees was sort of slow. The boys have been spending all their free time with our new puppy and I guess the only way to entice them to a nature walk is to bring the dog along.


We have a number of trees that are starting to get their autumn color and my son brought to my attention that the sweet gum trees are making the rocks underneath them shiny.


Note the leaves that have already fallen from the tree.


The leaves are getting shiny too.

Here’s what it says on Wikipedia:
“The gum resin, also known as liquid amber or copalm balsam, yielded by this tree has no special medicinal virtues, being inferior in therapeutic properties to many others of its class. It is a kind of native balsam, or resin, like turpentine. It may be clear, reddish or yellow, with a pleasant smell like ambergris.”


This is my garden companion….she is watching a bird on the lawn with great intent in this photo. (Ignore the weeds in the photo…they were left there in the name of challenge #30 or at least I keep telling myself that is the reason.) She does her own kind of tree study and is an expert tree climber.

We took a few hours to go up to a local apple orchard. We all enjoy the apple harvest time of year and all of its yummy treats, both the kind you eat and the kind you can see, smell, and feel.

The trees were loaded with apples.

Now for the kind of treats we look forward to all year. Apple doughnuts. No explanation needed
except for maybe the fact that we each enjoy a different kind…with nuts, or crumbs, or glazed, or plain, or cinnamon sugar.

I think there is no better way to learn about a tree than to eat the fruits of its boughs.

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Outdoor Hour-Weeds or Plants? Another Weed Post

“A weed is a plant growing where we wish something else to grow, and a plant may, therefore, be a weed in some locations and not in others.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 512

This week as I was watering the garden and flower beds, I spent some time thinking about weeds. The boys and I discussed the definition of a weed and how our yard is filled with plants that we call weeds that others might actually cultivate in their gardens. The unidentified weed above is growing alongside a few things I planted and it has proven to be healthier and more prolific than anything I intended to grow.

The definition of a weed and a plant in my yard come dangerously close. If the plant has some redeeming value like a pretty leaf or a pretty flower or a colorful berry, I sometimes leave it in the ground.


The unidentified plant from above looks like it is covered in beads to me and it is hard to really call it a weed but since it is growing in my flower bed where I didn’t plant it….it is a weed although I left it again this week and didn’t pull it out.


This beauty of a weed actually is growing in the gravel along my walkway. It is so green when most of my yard is turning brown already. It has a delicate white flower with a little yellow trumpet center. The leaves are a pretty shape. I left it in the ground too.


This weed is found all over my yard. It has the softest velvet leaves. I hate to pull it out…so I don’t. It is actually easier to pull it up when it is larger so leaving it in the ground really is a timesaver in the long run.


This blackberry vine is creeping under the fence from our neighbor’s yard. We have a constant battle with blackberry vines. I do have two places that I let them grow in the corners of the front yard so I can harvest a couple dessert’s worth of berries each summer. My husband whacks the vines as soon as he sees them. My husband considers this a “weed”.

This little tiny red berry is on a creeping plant under my crepe myrtle. I have spent a lot of time pulling it up but decided it can just stay. It is no longer considered a weed but a ground cover. (See the tiny mimosa trees also growing among the rocks? More on mimosas below.)

Right now, the plant shown above is my biggest “weed” in the garden and lawn. Tiny little mimosa trees are growing *everywhere*. We cut down a huge mimosa tree earlier this year but the seeds from the leftover seed pods are sprouting by the hundreds, if not thousands. I was making progress pulling them up by making it a goal to weed out fifty seedlings a day but I grew tired of the chore and now they are everywhere again. I need to get back to working on them a little every day. My point is that some people might consider a mimosa a great tree in their yard and actually encourage its growth but for our family the mimosas have to go and so they are considered a “weed”.

For more information on the weeds and seeds challenge, here is a link.