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Using Our Senses Nature Walk

We often take quiet walks together but when it is an intentional thing it seems to heighten the senses. I found today that stopping and being still is even better than just walking quietly.

When you stop and are still it gives time for the birds and little animals to come out from hiding and perhaps let you glimpse them. In my case, I was able to see some woodpeckers chasing each other from tree to tree. I heard the squirrels chattering in the trees alongside the trail that I hadn’t heard before.

I stood silently for perhaps five minutes, looking out over a little meadow area where the trees have lost all their leaves and the snow is still a bit patchy. I could feel the warm air in the sunshine as it blew just ever so slightly on my face.

I heard lots of different birds: nuthatches, jays, a flicker in the distance. I also hear the wings of a bird flutter in the bushes.

The walking trail was still covered mostly in snow and ice except where the sun had melted it away. We were alone on the trail all the way out to the road landmark where we usually turn around. I noticed the edges of the trail had lots and lots of freshly fallen acorns. I thought about how the animals in the forest seem to always have a food supply even if the weather is freezing cold.

We smelled the air several times…dampness, creosote from the old train tracks, oak leaves.

The trees made long shadows in the afternoon sun…the shadow of a bird flying overhead caught my eye as we stood along the trail.

This kind of walk refreshes like no other. I know that if you have little ones along on your walk it is a bit challenging to have quiet but it is worth a try. Challenge yourself to experience the quiet of the outdoors. You don’t have to go far or be gone for long periods of time. If your children are not accustomed to being outside, you will need to gradually earn their trust about how much fun it can be.

Most children today are not comfortable just getting outside and walking…they get bored easily. All the more reason to not procrastinate getting outside as a family to learn the benefits of just how much it can heal your spirit and body.

You will not regret it.

I also wanted to share a book with you in this entry. I mentioned it in the newsletter but it is worth sharing again with you.


We pulled out all our national park literature and this one is our favorite. I love the park choices, the art work, and concise park descriptions. Try to find it at your public library or the next time you are at a national park gift shop. I love picking up books as souvenirs and this one is a good for inspiring future travel and sharing a love of the beautiful world we live in.

I’m an Amazon Affiliate and only recommend products that I personally own (or wish I owned) and think my readers will love as well! This post may contain some links that will take you to these products on Amazon where I receive a small referral fee. I greatly appreciate your support!

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Outdoor Hour Challenge – December Senses Walk


Outdoor Hour Challenge
Using Your Senses – December Walk

There have been several challenges here on the blog during different seasons that feature using your senses or being quiet during a nature walk. Prepare your children ahead of time by explaining that spending some of your Outdoor Hour Challenge time should be time spent quietly observing. Use the ideas in the links below and the Listening Game in the additional activities below to incorporate some “using your senses” time into your OHC this week. Don’t be discouraged if your children can only manage a minute or two of quiet…it is something they can grow into when they learn the advantages of careful observation.

Don’t forget you can use this month’s (December 2013) Study Grid from the newsletter as part of this challenge.

Additional Activity:
Outdoor Listening Game
Go outside with your children and let each one find a place to sit quietly, choosing a comfortable spot where there are few distractions. Show them how to make cups with their hands and then hold them behind their ears like big deer or rabbit ears. Sit with your “deer” ears on and discover the sounds of your neighborhood or a near-by park.

This is a great training activity for sitting and listening quietly during your nature adventures. 
I am looking forward to getting out with my snowshoes and really using my senses.

Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #10. Try having a snack or picnic lunch even if it is super cold outside. Our family even found driving to a favorite spot, parking with a view to something natural, and eating in the car is a fantastic way to make a memory. Keep it simple and then come home and record your experience on the accompanying notebook page in the ebook. 
 
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Ultimate Ebook Library @handbookofnaturestudy

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December Extraordinary Things

We had a snowstorm that brought inches of glorious sparkling snow! I used the opportunity to see the extraordinary in the ordinary as part of last week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge.

Extraordinary Observations

I love the silence that comes from the snow. I was up several times in the night to watch the snow fall…there is something about the first snow of the year that makes it magical. This was the first time in a very long time that I didn’t have boys at home to go out early to enjoy the fresh snow. Times have changed.

The birds flock to our feeders just after a snowfall. They shelter in the shrubs and in the tree branches just beyond the feeders. They seem to come alive with the snow and every feeder is busy all day long. Finches, sparrows, juncos, jays, and even the hummingbirds come in numbers that I don’t see at other times.

I put out extra seed this morning and they still ate most of it up. I had to refill the hummingbird feeder the next morning…it had frozen overnight.


Cold air is invigorating. It is a smack in the face at first but then it stimulates many senses..the numbness of the nose and hands or the stinging tears that come from freezing air. The trees hold the snow until later in the afternoon and then as it melts it makes avalanches of snow underneath. One time I was bombed with snow on the head and it was cold!


The snow crunches and gives way under my boots as I tour the yard with the Kona dog and my camera. Kona thinks snow is fun and spends time chasing snowballs, eating snow, and generally racing around the yard in circles.


Colors are more vibrant and pop out from the white background. Reds, yellows, oranges, greens…all seem more brilliant in a snowy landscape. We gathered a few colorful items for a project that I will share later in the week…look for it.

December shared its snowy extraordinary side this week…just in time to share for this challenge. I look forward to hearing about your extraordinary in the ordinary observations. So much to be thankful for.

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Using Less Plastic – 2013 Recap and Plans

This year we made progress towards our using less plastics goal. I am going to share all of the links and ideas from previous posts, our continued progress on those ideas, and then outline my plans for continuing to use less plastic in 2014.

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/02/using-less-plastics-update-cutting-back.html
We started off in January making sure we use our reusable water containers more to cut back on our plastic bottle consumption. We are still using far fewer disposable water bottles but we could do even more in 2014.

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/02/using-less-plastics-update-cutting-back.html
We also made sure we had enough reusable grocery bags to use with our shopping. I have to admit that in the last few months I have forgotten my cloth bags quite a few times. I need to be much more diligent about getting the bags back into the car and remembering to take them into the store.

I have been better at not taking a bag if I can just carry the item from the store. This is something that is now second nature to me. It always surprises me when the clerk wants to put a single small item into a big plastic bag. I usually just take the item and hand back the bag.

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/03/using-less-plastic-update-2.html
I love my stuff bags and I have two of them now! I just need to really, really remember to pull them out and use them. I keep them in my glove box of the car so they are always with me when I am out shopping.

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/04/using-less-plastics-better-trash-bags.html
This has been the most consistent thing we have stuck with all year…using better compostable garbage bags. I am happy to say this is something that we have incorporated into our lifestyle. We also use less of them!

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/05/using-less-plastic-update-kozy-wraps.html
We use these all the time for lunches. My husband packs a salad every day and this container is the best ever. We loved it so much we bought two more so we all can make use of them when we are out and about.
We also purchased the soup container by Sistema and my husband is using that to take along hot foods in his lunch box.

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/06/using-less-plastics-stanless-steel.html
We started off using the stainless steel containers quite a bit but I found that they are very heavy if I am carrying them in my backpack. If we are packing an ice chest to take in the car they work much better.

http://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2013/07/using-less-plastics-update-5-using.html

I have to say that we use very few plastic cups anymore. I don’t think I have purchased any at all since writing this post. We just reuse the ones we have or use alternative reusable cups.

Plans for 2014


I am hoping to switch over any of remaining plastic food containers to some like these glass ones. I think they will be better for storing and reheating leftovers. Of course these would only be for using in the home and not for taking out and about.

I have yet to start consistently using my reusable produce bags. I love them but it is awkward to pull them out at the grocery store for some reason. I need to get over it and just do it in 2014!

I know that I am still purchasing lots of plastic packaging for foods and consumer goods. It really takes some forethought and pick things with less packaging. Places I have cut back drastically are in convenience foods, juice, and cheese. I have lots of room for improvement and when I figure out ways to do so, I will pass on the tips.

How did your family do this year? Did you cut back on your plastic consumption?

I’m an Amazon Affiliate and only recommend products that I personally own (or wish I owned) and think my readers will love as well! This post may contain some links that will take you to these products on Amazon where I receive a small referral fee. I greatly appreciate your support!

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Outdoor Hour Challenge – December Extraordinary in the Ordinary

 
Outdoor Hour Challenge
Extraordinary in the Ordinary – December Edition

Find the Extraordinary in the Ordinary I challenge you to find five ordinary things in your backyard or in your everyday life that you can study and learn something more about. Find something extraordinary in something you have come to think of as ordinary and usual, so usual that you may not even notice it anymore.

You may remember that we have done this challenge in the past two times. Please be inspired by both of these entries to complete your own extraordinary nature walk this month with your children.

Additional Printable Notebook Page

Notebook Page: Extraordinary in the Ordinary – December

Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #8. Take along a magnifying lens on your Extraordinary in the Ordinary walk. Find something to examine more closely…even ice, frost, water from a puddle, the bark of a tree, or snow. Find something to be amazed by and then complete the notebooking page in the ebook.   

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California Shrub: Toyon or California Christmas Berry


Toyon or California Christmas Berry

  • Rose Family
  • Evergreen shrub or small tree growing to 6 or 8 feet high.
  • Leaves are 2 to 4 inches long and dark green and fine toothed.
  • Small white flowers appear in June or July.
  • Red berries appear by December….favorite food of robins, mockingbirds, and cedar waxwings!

This is a common shrub in our area and right now it is brilliant with red berries. I love seeing it along our walking trail and I realized this week that my dad has a whole patch of it on his hill. I am planning on going over there to take some photos later in the week which I will add to this entry.

I enjoyed this paragraph in my California Forests and Woodlands book:

“The wildlife of Foothill Woodland is often richest in the woods where the pines and oaks intermingle with California Buckeyes, a shrubby undergrowth of Buckbrush, California Coffeeberry, Toyon, and tangled vines of Wild Grape, Pipestems, and Western Poison Oak.”

This describes our habitat perfectly! I love learning about the interdependence of plants and animals…so very interesting. I need to add Coffeeberry and Wild Grape to my list of plants to study in the next year so look for entries in the future.

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Handbook of Nature Study December 2013 Newsletter-National Parks

December 2013
National Parks Edition

Contents of this edition of the newsletter include: 

  • 7 fabulous articles sharing various aspects of our national parks- Junior Ranger Program, Passport to National Parks program, inspiring art and science at national parks, a book review featuring national parks, and some heartfelt words from each of us about how we personally feel about visiting and knowing national parks
  • December Study Grid
  • Recommended study links

This month I have let the articles be the meat of the newsletter. I feel so strongly that each of us in the United States needs to experience at least one national park with our families to see the value and the amazing natural habitats that have been preserved for us.

I have attached the newsletter download link to the bottom of my blog feed so if you are a subscriber you will receive the link to the latest newsletter at the bottom of every post for the month of January. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can still subscribe and receive the newsletter link in the next post that comes to your email box. You can subscribe to my blog by filling in your email address in the subscription box on my sidebar.

Note: You can download your newsletter from the link in two ways:

 

  • If your link is clickable, right click the link and then “save link as” to save the file on your computer.
  • If the link is not clickable, cut and paste the link to your browser, open, and then save your newsletter to your computer.

 

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Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival – November Edition

OHC Blog Carnival

We had a great month! November was particularly mild which meant we could spend lots of time enjoying the outdoors together. Thank you to all the participants for this edition of the blog carnival. I know you will enjoy reading the entries as much as I did.

Our family’s entries from this month’s study (in case you missed one):

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get outdoors!

Woodpecker/November Birds
Nelleke from Education is a Life shares her entry Birds of November with carnival readers.She writes about their bird focus for the month and some great images as well.

November World
Annie from Annie’s Place has submitted their November Weather Study entry for the carnival. She shares how they used the Outdoor Hour Challenge and a Hearts and Trees Weather Lapbook. So many great things in this entry!

Shirley Ann from Under An English Sky has shared their wonderful November World entry with the carnival. What a lovely glimpse into their November nature walks.

Alex from Life on a Canadian Island has submitted her next installment in her series of Window Nature Study – Autumn November. What a fun idea and I am thoroughly enjoying seeing into their continuing study.

Kris from On The 8th Day has written this entry for you to enjoy: Our November Neighborhood. Oh what an insightful entry! She shares how nature study has helped her gain some insight to how her children think…love it!

Barbara from The Schoolhouse on the Prairie shares her November World entry. I loved seeing their cottonwood tree and their nature riddles.

Mushrooms
Angie from Petra School has submitted her entry: Cascade Head Reserve, A Morning Walk. In this entry she has some glorious mushrooms for you to see. I love it!

Eva Varga shares her Fascinating Fungi entry with carnival readers for this edition. Her run through the forest was interrupted by some beautiful fungi. Thanks Eva for sharing!

Potpourri
Taunya from Taunya’s Place shares their Nature Study-The Cattail entry with the carnival.  They used the Handbook of Nature Study and had some fun too!

OHC Blog Carnival

 Don’t forget to share your blog entries with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. All entries done in December are eligible for the next edition. The deadline for entries is 12/30/13 and you can send them directly to me: harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com or submit them at the blog carnival site (link on the sidebar of my blog).

Join us for the 2013-2013 Outdoor Hour Challenges.
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Outdoor Hour Challenge – Field Notebook Nature Journal

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Making a Field Notebook

Use the ideas below to start your own field notebook:

You may also find this post helpful:
How To Organize Your Nature Journal Pages

Additional Activity:
Hearts and Trees Digital Camera Fall Scavenger Hunt
http://heartsandtrees.blogspot.com/2012/10/digital-camera-scavenger-hunt-free.html
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.

You may be interested in reading this post:
Nature Study and Digital Photography

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

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OHC Blog Carnival
You are welcome to submit any of you blog Outdoor Hour Challenge blog entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.

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Backyard Birds: November 2013

I love watching and counting our backyard birds. As part of Project Feederwatch I am observing two days a week, a few minutes per day. Participating in this citizen science project has brought such focus to our birdwatching. We constantly are reminded that if we didn’t put in the effort, we would miss out on so many learning opportunities.

We saw a House Finch last week that has eye disease. This led to a bit of research on the All About Birds website. We learned the causes and the action we need to take when we see a House Finch with an eye disorder. You can read more on Cornell’s Website.

Today we saw a bunch of Juncos…one even posed on the back deck railing. Look at those feet. It spurred me on to pull out the bird feet activity from a few weeks ago to try to discover what kind of feet the Junco has.

It was quite an exciting afternoon when we spotted two Ruby Crowned Kinglets in our front yard. If you look closely in the center of this photo you will spy a little bird with red feathers on his head. He is fast so I wasn’t able to get a very clear photo of him but there he is! He is so light that he can land on branches of the butterfly bushes and they don’t even sag. He can sort of hover over the branch as well…amazing. I was able a few years ago to get a good photo in this entry: November Birds.

Here is our November 2013 List of Birds:
House Finch
White Crowned Sparrow
Dark Eyed Junco
Oak Titmouse
Anna’s Hummingbird
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Spotted Towhee
Western Bluebird
White Breasted Nuthatch
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Western Scrubjay
Bewick’s Wren – new to our life list
Northern Mockingbird
Ruby Crowned Kinglet

I am so looking forward to December bird watching!

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Join us for the 2013-2014 Outdoor Hour Challenges!