“A singing bird is one who enjoys life and spreads happiness.”
I am so very pleased to share with you April’s Blog Sponsor! Singing Bird Studios specializes in unique jewelry and other special handmade items that I know you be happy to know about. I was introduced to Singing Bird Studios at the BEECH Retreat back in January where I received a special key chain as a gift from Stephanie the owner and creator of Singing Bird Studios.
Here is a little introduction from Stephanie @ Singing Bird Studios:
I am a mom who works full time. I have been making jewelry for ten years and decided just last year to turn it into a business. Singing Bird Studios is my creative outlet. A singing bird is one who enjoys life and spreads happiness. That’s what I want to create for myself and those around me. I design many of the images you see, but I also use digital art, vintage papers, and scrapbook papers to achieve the look I want. I make all items by hand in my home studio. I am excited to launch a Wedding Party collection this summer so brides can thank their wedding party {in style}. I LOVE what I DO!
Stephanie graciously accepted my offer to be my blog sponsor and I will be sharing her work during the month of April. I love every piece she sent for my review…my favorite is this lovely Blue Butterfly necklace that has been worn on quite a few occasions lately. Everyone compliments me on the design and I love the way it feels and looks with the silver snake chain.
But this week I am going to be giving away one of the pieces from her Vintage Collection – This gorgeous orange butterfly with the pretty copper plated pendant and chain. Click over and see all the pieces in this collection. These are sure to be a favorite and I already am planning on purchasing one from this collection as a gift for a special friend.
Stay tuned for more giveaways this month and please take advantage of her generous special discount offer code for my readers: Enter “sweet” and receive 30% off your entire order!
We wrapped up our month-long mushroom, moss, and lichen study with a final hike last Friday. Guess what? We saw the first really nice mushroom of the month! I had pretty much given up hope that we would see any actual mushrooms and was resigned to completing our study in a future month when a specimen presented itself.
Well, we were able to complete the month with a great observation session of this big guy! I love the texture of the cap and the size was amazing…about six inches across. There were several smaller mushrooms nearby but we focused on the creamy brownish one.
I created a two page journal entry with March’s grid study (cut apart) and some photos of lichen, the mushroom, and a glorious fungus we found a couple of weeks ago. I love the bands of color and the way it looks like a colorful skirt…natural beauty is hard to beat.
Doing research about this fungus, which we identified as Turkey Tail, we learned it was being used in treating cancer patients. Who would have thought? There are amazing things to learn all the time when you really dig a little deeper.
Mushrooms, lichen, and moss were a fantastic focus for all of us….if you read the entries in the latest blog carnival I’m sure you realized that too. Looking forward to what April is going to bring with reptiles and amphibians.
We have arrived at a study of reptiles and amphibians just in time for perhaps some spring observations of tadpoles, peeping of spring peepers, and the awakening of our more cold-blooded nature friends. Whether this study is of real-life subjects or preparation for future observations, I am confident that your children will benefit from learning more about reptiles and amphibians using the Handbook of Nature Study and the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
Contents of this edition of the newsletter include:
4 encouraging articles to help with your study of reptiles and amphibians
Contributors from India, Australia, and England – such a privilege to hear from so many kindred spirits from around the world
April Study Grid to help your monthly nature study
Show and Tell from OHC Participants
Recommended study links and field guides
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 April. 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.
April Blog Sponsor
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This month has flown by and with it so has the mushroom/lichen/moss study! Our family enjoyed finding such beautiful things to learn about in our own yard and along our local hiking trails. Taking a few minutes each week to explore with my family, to really slow and see the little ordinary things in our world, brought us much delight. I hope your family had a chance to seek out some of this month’s subjects and learn together about them. If you were still buried in snow, save these challenges for a future time when the opportunity arises.
Our families moss/lichen/mushroom entries from this month’s study (in case you missed one):
Tricia from Hodgepodge has put together their entry Spring Nature Study with Multiple Ages where she shares how they use the Mushroom/Lichen/Moss Grid Study with everyone in their family. What a great example!
Kelly joins the carnival for the first time with their entry March Nature Study-Outdoor Hour Challenge Mushrooms from her blog Believe. They found a lot of things to observe during their outdoor time and once the returned home. Thanks for sharing!
Robin from Academia did some improvising for this month’s study since they still have lots of snow. Please click over and read how they learned the parts of a mushroom and found some lichen and moss: Mushrooms, Lichen and Moss.
Sarah from GranWood Explores submitted their OHC-Moss, Lichen, and Mushrooms entry for your enjoyment. They found quite a few mosses and fungus to observe even though they still have snow. I really enjoyed seeing the variety.
Alex from Life on a Canadian Island writes about their Moss and Lichen on the Trail. I really enjoyed their entry where she showed the subjects they found even when there was snow on the ground. They took the opportunity to use their microscope too so check out what they found!
Angie from Petra School enthusiastically shares their March Moss Study! I love seeing her images and hearing how they learned something new with this study…she always inspires me to do a better job!
Lisa from Pilgrims at Tinker Creek has gathered their Lichen Study into a wonderfully visual entry. What a great way to learn about lichen up close! Don’t miss seeing the image with the little hairs on the lichen…fascinating!
Lisa also has submitted their Moss Entry from her blog Pilgrims at Tinker Creek. What a great account of their mossy adventures this month!
Nadene from Practical Pages has submitted their Moss Study for you to view. Their South African season is perfect for their study of moss and she shares some wonderful links and their moss terrariums.Nadene also shares their Lichen entry which includes a wonderful collage of lichen found on their lichen scavenger hunt. Awesome images!
Mother Robin from Mother Robin’s Notes from the Nest has written We Like Lichens and Most Mosses for the carnival this time around. They went on a hunt for all three kinds of lichen and were successful! I enjoyed seeing a glimpse at their moss too.
Heidi from Home Schoolroom has a wonderful post for you to view: I’m Linking Lichen. She has included some additional resources for you to check out and also their nature journal page.
Rachel from Happily Occupied Homebodies shares their Moss Study and a Quartz Find with the carnival. What gorgeous colorful images she has of their moss and quartz discoveries!
Kelly from Believe shares their Week in Science which includes a study of mushrooms and lichen.
Carla from Inside Outside Michiana shares two entry this time around: Moss Walk and Nurturing Acorns-Fairies.-where she shares their mushroom study and a few other ideas too.
Mushrooms/Fungi
Alicia from Redwoods Homeschool shares their Afternoon Sketching entry with a great example of a mushroom notebook page. Alicia also has submitted their Sharing Our Mushroom Encounters for your viewing.
Alex from Life on a Canadian Island submits her Fungi on the Trail entry for you to enjoy. There is one image of a glorious fungus right at the top that is awesome. Thanks for sharing your PEI nature study.
Carla from Inside Outside Michiana had a great time with her little one and this mushroom study: Mushroom Exploration! She shares how they compared wild and store bought mushrooms on a level with her little guy. Excellent example.
Lisa from Pilgrims at Tinker Creek contributes their Bracket Fungi entry for you to read. They found some glorious fungi to observe and identify. Don’t miss the dinner plate fungus!
Nadene from Practical Pages shares their South African mushrooms with the carnival: Mushrooms. Her daughter created another wonderful collage of images for us to view and Nadene fills in with some interesting tips and facts about mushrooms.
Robin from Mother Robin’s Nature Notes submits their There’s a Fungus Among Us post for your to enjoy. She has some great close up images of a bracket fungus for you to view. You are also invited to read their Yeast is Yeast post where they work on learning more about yeast and fungus.
Carol from Journey-and-Destination shares their Outdoor Hour March entry with some colorful moss and fungus.
Makita from Academia Celestia writes and shares their Fungi and Mushrooms…Our Quest Begins entry with the carnival. It looks like they found all kinds of interesting subjects to learn about!
With winter weather leaving them still with snow and a newborn in the house, Barbara from The Schoolhouse on the Prairie resorted to some indoor study this time, including an introduction to this month’s topics: Winter or Spring?
Angie from Petra School treats all to her February Birding entry. What a treat to see all her Oregon birds! Don’t you just want to go on a field trip and see all her wonderful bird creatures? While you are over at the Petra School, check out her Learning about Pelicans entry. I love the comparing of their Oregon pelicans to my California pelicans…great stuff!
Ann from Harvest Moon by Hand submits their Outdoor Hour Nature Challenge – Squirrels entry for you to enjoy. She and her daughters always do such a great job with their nature study. Ann also has shared their Winter Birds/Bird Migration entry with the carnival. Don’t miss seeing their very well done nature journal pages! One last entry from Ann and her girls- Rabbits and Hares! This looks like they had a terrific time learning more by fostering a rabbit in their home…great idea!
Michelle from Following Footprints shares their Signs of Spring…..wonderful job, including journals.
Kris from On the 8th Day shares their early spring bird study: Here Birdie, Birdie, Birdie. They made a bluebird house!
Don’t forget to share your blog entries with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. All entries done in April are eligible for the next edition. The deadline for entries is 4/29/13 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).
Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary in our nature travels is something we try to do on a regular basis. In my experience, the more you examine a subject, the better you really see it and its beauty….its extraordinary-ness!
Revisit the topic of mushrooms (or fungus) this week and try to find something extraordinary to discover. Make up stories about the mushrooms, recording them in your nature journal. Make sketches or additional watercolor entries in your nature journal. Take photos and add them to your nature journal. Enjoy! Printable Activity: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary-Mushrooms Free Printable Notebook Page: Extraordinary in the Ordinary This is a great activity for using your imagination and for seeing beyond the ordinary. Take some time to find a subject for this Extraordinary in the Ordinary challenge. Take a deep look at any fungus you find in your yard or local area. Try to see the beauty of the structure, the placement, the role it plays in the habitat. Perhaps it provides food for a local animal or insect. Find some aspect to really enjoy as you spend one last week exploring the fungi in your world.
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #9 – Small Square Study. Find a spot where you have some fungus growing and mark out your small square according to the instructions in this challenge. Use you keen observation skills to find as many things as you can in your square and then record your results on the notebooking page.
Slate is a natural part of our landscape and it turns out after a little research that at the beginning of the 20th century, our county had one of the biggest slate mining trades in the whole United States. There are slate mines just a short way from our house and I never even knew it. I had seen the quarry but it did not occur to me that it was a slate mine. Turns out that on our side of the river they have started mining slate again.
Once upon a time they had an elaborate cable car system to get the slate from one side of the canyon to the other…I had heard about the cable crossings but I guess I never had put much thought into what they actually carried across on the cables. It wasn’t until this year’s rock challenges that I even put it all together.
One of the little mountain towns used to be called Slatington and it was called that because they made slate shingles. I never knew.
After last month’s study of shale, we were on the lookout for some samples of slate to collect. It didn’t take much effort since we now knew to look for the layers and then to test the rock’s hardness. If it broke easily, it was shale. If it was hard and wouldn’t easily break, it was slate.
We found this wonderful specimen on our regular hiking trail.
I think what was confusing me was that I thought that shale had to be black….turns out that is not the case. Our shale can be black, brown, reddish…or in between. It is the texture and fissure qualities that make slate easy to identify.
March has been filled with lots of free notebooking pages, giveaways, and inspiration from NotebookingPages.com. I want to thank Debra one last time for having such an innovative company that is always trying to take notebooking to the next level. There are so many things I love about notebooking both for homeschooling and for nature journaling and this company always has just the right page for us to use.
Notebooking Opportunities For My Readers
I would love for my readers to take advantage of the 50% off discount code for any nature or science sets: nature50. Please note: add all items to cart before applying the discount code.
I encourage you to become a free member and have access to many notebooking pages to get started if you aren’t sure about this method of keeping your nature journal.
I invite you to one last giveaway coming up this Friday for the Nature Study Bundle of notebooking pages.
Congrats to the three winners so far this month!
Jen G
Gail F
Dianne O
I loved sharing my enthusiasm for notebooking this month and NotebookingPages.com is my preferred supplier of pages for our nature journals.
You can read more about our notebooking in our nature journal here:
Spring wildflowers cheer my very soul. They seem to sing out to all of us that warmer days are coming and we don’t need to stay so much indoors anymore. We took a walk near the river yesterday and found so many pretty little flowers to enjoy. Above there are Baby Blue Eyes and Fivespot…there were whole patches of them on a sunny little hillside.
Round every corner there were more blue flowers….how many blue flowers do you know?
Okay, I have to admit that this is by far the best image I have ever taken of this particular flower….and it was with my iPhone! I love that you can even see a little ant enjoying the golden yellow color in the sunshine. These meadow buttercups are everywhere right now and they make the day seem brighter.
Here is going to be my first shrub for my Nature Study Goals for 2013. I will do my research and identify the shrub and add it to my nature journal…watch the blog for more information on this one.
Nothing so pretty as Sierra Nevada Pea…..just now starting to shoot up and twine itself among the other wildflowers and weeds. Love this pink one the best!
So hopefully my wildflowers have cheered you up if you are having cold weather….and inspired you to go look for your own wildflowers if you have the opportunity.
1. How about a spring cattail hunt? Find your own patch of cattails and complete some observations using the Handbook of Nature Study. There is even a freeSeasonal Cattail Notebook Pageto print!
2. Look for signs of spring in your part of the world. What better way to enjoy the early spring time outdoors? Use the suggestions in the challenge and then print the Signs of Spring notebook pagefor your nature journal.
3. One of the most popular “wildflower” challenges of all time is the Dandelion Challenge from the Spring Series! Everyone loves a good dandelion study and with this commonly found plant your family can enjoy a little flower study too!
4. Here is one that all of you gardeners will enjoy…earthworms! We love digging down into the fresh spring soil and that means lots of earthworms. My boys loved to go on an earthworm hunt while I pulled a few weeds in the garden boxes.
5. Everyone has weather….you can all take some early spring weather observations no matter if there is snow on the ground or you are experiencing rain showers or you have blue skies and white puffy clouds. Print a weather notebook page and have some fun outside recording your weather and observations.
There are lots more spring nature study ideas on the Spring Tab at the top of my blog. Pick one and enjoy a few minutes outdoors this week. Have you seen some signs of spring in your neighborhood?
Outdoor Hour Challenge: For this challenge we are going to be on the lookout for any mushroom/fungus that we spy in our backyard or local area. Be sure to check out the previous mushroom nature study challenge from the Autumn Series of 2009. There is also a suggestion from the Handbook of Nature Study to capture a series of mushrooms in watercolors (page 717). I think this is such a wonderful idea and hope to start with one mushroom watercolor this week.
You may wish to print and take the printable below with you during your outdoor time to record any mushrooms you find to observe. If you need an explanation for the vocabulary used with the printable, see the links below (also found on page 717 of the Handbook of Nature Study).
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #3. Drawing mushrooms in your nature journal can be fun and interesting…a great way to really see all the parts. Include labels, the date and location you found the mushroom, and any other fun facts from your outdoor time. Make it personal and special.
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