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Posted on July 1, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival: Summer Time Edition #1

Summer time has arrived and many of us are in the middle of some great summer nature study using the Summer Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges.

Our family is greatly enjoying the focus on using all our senses and the effort to get outdoors in the evening.

I would like to thank all of you for your contributions to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. I sincerely hope that you have continued success with your nature study activities this summer.

Summer Series #1 Mosquitoes and the World of Smell
Amy from Together For A Reason completed an evening study starting with mosquitoes and ending with lightning bugs.

Angie and her boys did an amazing study of mosquitoes and she share their entry Blood Sucking Zombie Minions and their Dog/Dragon. She took some macro photos of the larvae that you don’t want to miss.

Tricia and her children completed a mosquito study in their own backyard. What started out as a reluctant study turned out great!

K from All Creation Cries Out shares their families mosquito jar and some wonderful photos too.

Spring Series #3 Spring Bird Study
Angie from The One Thing had some baby chicks. She and her sons learned more about their chickens and they share their study as well as their journal entries.

Spring Series #5 Seasonal Cattail Study
Amy and her crew ventured outdoors with a new baby to complete their Spring Cattail Study. This looks like a lovely spring outing and they found their cattails.

Spring Series #6 Apple Tree
Amy from Together for a Reason also completed another challenge, adapting it to their particular area. Instead of apples they studied raspberries. Once again with a new baby in the sling, they did a great job of getting outdoors.

Spring Series #7 Cats
Kelsey from Mud Puddles shares their cat study. Kelsey completed the study with her kids even though she is allergic to cats. I am impressed.

Spring Series #8 Snakes
Phyllis and her children from All Things Beautiful share their snake study with carnival readers. I think that Phyllis approached this study of snakes with a wonderful attitude. I too want to equip my family to know which snakes are dangerous and which ones are not. Knowledge is powerful.

Kelsey from Mud Puddles also contributed their snake study blog entry which included a trip to see snakes at the pet shop.

Angie in GA is one brave mama. She shares their snake story complete with photos! Don’t miss their entry into the carnival on The One Thing.

Spring Series #9 Earthworms
Alex from Serendipity Home School shares their earthworm study with carnival readers. Lots of great photos and a wonderful nature journal sample are included in their entry.

Angie from Petra School shares their earthworm study. Their family constructed an earthworm jar and then invited some friends over to study earthworms up-close.

Kelsey from Mud Puddles and her children also made a worm jar and then observed worms on the sidewalk. Love the photos in this entry.

Phyllis from All Things Beautiful had a very interesting earthworm post…at least to me. She shares information on her daughter’s compost bin where she uses worms. I learned a lot. You will want to see their nature journals as well.

Spring Series #10 Ants
Kelsey from Mud Puddles shares a large variety of ants that they observed as part of this challenge. Great journal entries too!

Angie from Petra School and her boys completed a very thorough study of ants. Love their words, photos, and journals in this entry!

One more ant challenge entry was submitted from Tricia and her children who remembered just where to look for an ant hill. Check out their entry on Homeschool Highlights.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #2 Using Your Words
Yahkheena at Seeking the Narrow Way completed OHC #2 with her family and they share their entry with words, photos, and journals. This is a lovely entry.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #9 One Small Square
How about a beach square? Tricia and her family completed a wonderful one small square study at the beach. See their complete entry on Homeschool Highlights.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #13 Practicing the Flower Parts
Andi from Declared Unto Him shares their family study of the iris. Truly beautiful photos accent this entry as well as her daughter’s watercolor painting.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #16 Sunflowers
Sometimes it is hard to remember that in Australia they are experiencing the opposite seasons from those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Pauline from Giggly HQ shares their sunflower study with some great photos of cockatoos in the sunflowers.

Signs of Spring
Angie from GA shares their nature walk with lots of signs of spring. Pop over to The One Thing and see what they found interesting.

Alex from Serendipity Home School shares some lovely butterfly and bees on thistle photos in her entry to the blog carnival. Looks like a great nature walk! She also shares some colorful wildflowers on another casual nature study day.

Suzanne from Little Kisses from God found some unexpected subjects during their Outdoor Hour time. Check out her entry, Unexpected Discoveries.

I really enjoyed reading all the entries to the carnival and I hope you take a few minutes to check them out as well. I look forward to seeing all your July entries this month and I hope to learn something new.

Please consider submitting your Outdoor Hour Challenge entries and your Spring Series and Summer Series entries to the next carnival. Deadline for submissions will be July 31st, 2010 and all entries from July are eligible. Here is the link for submissions: LINK.

Thanks again,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Sense of Smell and Mosquitoes: Summer Series #1

Our report for the Summer Series Outdoor Hour Challenge #1 World of Smell and Mosquitoes.

Our family has been spending just about every evening outdoors enjoying the sunset and evening air. Our neighbor had a tree fall last winter and then he cut another one down that was precarious. We now have a beautiful view of the western sky and many a beautiful sunset.

Our list of summer smells is growing and the most predominant evening smell of note is the smell of skunks. The second fragrance that we detect in the evenings is the smell of star jasmine along the fence. This year the flowers are abundant and after a long hot summer day, the sweet spicy smell of the jasmine is intoxicating. The boys always say they smell woodsmoke and grass when I ask. If you asked us during the daylight hours, the most frequent smell in the air is hot oak leaves. There is something about that particular fragrance that is calming to me and it always signals to me that it is summer. This is a wonderful exercise for older children since they can usually detect and identify many smells that we adults perhaps don’t notice anymore. 🙂

Our mosquito study has been limited this year. We did try to find some wigglers to observe but so far we have not been successful. We have collected some water but with no results. This will continue to be something we look for the opportunity to do all summer. We did have some direct observations of mosquitoes though and the most fascinating thing to me is the way mosquitoes seem to choose certain people out of the group to target. I have one son that attracts them like a magnet. I can be sitting right next to him and they will buzz around me but not land on me. They will bite him multiple times and he is then miserable with itching hot bites.

We looked up the information on mosquitoes and learned a little bit more about how the mosquito fits into our local web of life. We have bats in our yard in the evenings and now we realize that the mosquitoes are actually part of their food web. I think our Creator has made such a wonderful world that is in balance and is just right if man does not interfere.

This is from one evening on our camping trip to Oregon…look at that moon.

The section on in Discover Nature at Sundown was also interesting and we learned more about categories of smells. We know have some new vocabulary to use when we describe a smell. Our summer has been full of informal nature study so far in addition to the official Outdoor Hour Challenges and it warms my heart when the boys bring something up and we can research it to learn more.

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Barb — 1 Comment

End of June Garden Update

The garden has sprung to life in the last few weeks. These are some new Zinnia Pixie Sunshine plants that I received free in a seed order. I planted them in a pot on the deck and they are going to be a fantastic choice for a container.

Vegetables are growing like crazy.

Flowers are blooming in all corners in many shapes and sizes. These day lilies are amazingly beautiful in real life.

The colors of summer are amazing and I can’t get enough of my day lilies this year.

Even the weeds are so very pretty. This self-heal is growing up along my fence line among some wild grapes that have planted themselves. I’m not sure where they came from but they are nice and green so they will stay.

The first round of herbs are ready to be harvested. Pesto anyone?

There are surprising new varieties of plants like this coleus.

And what garden post would be complete without a photo of my cat?

Water always tastes better out of the bird bath in the rose garden….at least that is what Miss Cocoa tells me anyway. This was during another one of my early morning walks outside in the cool air. Miss Cocoa decided to accompany me as I wandered through the garden and observed the nuthatches and woodpeckers.

Hope you enjoyed my garden update. Next week, I will share some more from my butterfly garden.

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Sunrise Walk and a Few Wildflowers

It has been extremely hot here the last few days and we have been missing our afternoon walks. My husband and I woke up early this morning, deciding to rise and take our dog for a long walk in the cool morning air.

What a delight!

We found some wildflowers to enjoy and I wanted to share them with you.

Queen Anne’s Lace (Are you looking for your Queen Anne’s lace to observe for the Summer Challenges?)

The chicory is just now starting to bloom around the edges of the trail. It is such a pretty color and contrasts greatly with the grasses baked brown in the heat.

Summertime means getting creative with your outdoor time…we try to be out in the early morning and in the evening around sundown. With the Summer Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges, we all are learning to use our senses more acutely.

I look forward to sharing more of our early morning observations in the weeks to come.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Just a sidenote: I am working through a stack of nature related books this summer. One that I have read before but always enjoy reading again is this one:

I purchased mine used quite some time ago and it looks like there are a number of decent copies for less than a dollar.

Posted on June 25, 2010 by Barb — 17 Comments

Low Tide Marine Life: Southern Oregon Coast

We had an opportunity while on our Oregon Coast camping trip to take advantage of an extremely low tide to view spectacular marine creatures easily. We have done quite a bit of tide pool exploring in the last couple of years but this was by far the most awesome experience ever.

The colors of the marine life are shockingly beautiful with their pinks, bright greens, oranges, and purples. I will share a few of my favorite photos from the experience.

Sea stars and anemones were everywhere you looked, the most I have ever seen in one place.

We all loved getting a close up view of the sea stars and feeling their textures. We each had a favorite color.

This was the first time we saw this particular kind of sea star, a leather star and it was really interesting to look at. He sort of looks like he is waving to us in this photo.

How about this sun star?

There were also loads and loads of barnacles, mussels, and snails. I think the orange one is THIS. I think the striped one is THIS.

Talk about mussels…..some rocks were just covered in them.

This was the most fascinating creature that we observed during the low tide. The leather chitons were exposed on the rocks and we could really get up close. Yes, it is a living creature.

One morning we were out in the tide pools there was a volunteer naturalist helping answer questions. It was a treasure to have her there and we spent quite a bit of time exploring side by side. She was a wealth of information and I learned so much more by watching her movements and looking in places she suggested. She pointed out this worm. I think it might be this red ribbon worm.

It was an interesting perspective to see the sea grasses laying down flat because of the lack of water. The sea birds were having a delicious breakfast as they sat on the rocks. Even though it looks like the water is really close, we never got wet. Someone was always watching to see when the water was moving back in but we had plenty of time to rock hop and examine this habitat very closely.

The memories of this tidepool adventure will be with us for a very long time.

It was such a moving experience and we all felt blessed to have been able to take advantage of the opportunity.

I will try to post some of the photos from our hikes in the redwoods soon….awesome in a different way. If you are wondering what beach this is, we were at Harris Beach in Brookings, Oregon. I highly recommend this state park for camping and exploring the southern Oregon coast.

Have you seen the new product over at NotebookingPages.com? If you own a Lifetime Membership over on Debra’s website, you can log into your account on NotebookingPages.com and download your set right now. If you aren’t already a member over there, you can purchase the set separately or I would highly recommend a Lifetime Membership so you can access all of the 1000’s of notebooking pages she has to offer. ($4.95 for the set or get started with your membership with $10!)

Please note I am an affiliate for NotebookingPages.com and have used the notebooking pages with my family for years!

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Barb — 2 Comments

Ants Are Everywhere: Our Last Spring Series Challenge Entry

My wildside is now blooming like crazy.

Better late than never….here is our last Spring Series Challenge for ants. I made this a challenge for my youngest son to go out and quickly find three different spots in our yard where he knew there were ants.

I know that from working around the yard that there are places where we regularly find ants. In fact, last week I was watering our garden and it seems that I disturbed a colony of ants and they were quickly crawling up my legs before I even knew it. Let’s just say that I decided the best course of action was to turn the hose on myself and wash them all away. It must have looked rather funny….you can picture me wearing a skirt with ants crawling all over my legs….then me drenched with cold hose water doing a little “ants in my pants” dance.

Here are the three photos that my son took as he completed my mini-challenge for ants.

Ant on the rocks

Ant on the tree

Ants on the sidewalk

I found a few more this morning during my outdoor time.

Ants on the sunflower

Ants on the wall leading up to the hummingbird feeder

I also noticed that on my wildside I now have English plantain blossoming. Can you see the pollen on my fingers from this little flower? It is very pretty up-close and I never even knew we had this in our yard because it usually gets mowed down before it has flowers.

After we did some pruning a few weeks ago, I added the limbs under a bush near our birdfeeder. I am trying to see what kind of animals and birds will be attracted to this sheltered area adjacent to my wildside. So far I have noticed that the little birds will fly into the pile and then pop out to snatch seeds from under the feeder.

Well that wraps up the whole Spring Series of Challenges for our family. We are busy working on the Summer Series as the weather warms up.

Posted on June 22, 2010 by Barb — 1 Comment

First Day of Summer 2010: Know Your Own Yard

I know that yesterday was the first official day of summer but for some reason I forgot to publish this post so you are receiving it a day late. Perhaps it was that my laptop died and I have been working from a different computer….in any case, enjoy the notebook page and your second day of summer.

Note: I am hoping to continue working on a series of “Know Your Own Yard” posts over the summer and perhaps even into the autumn.

When all else fails, know your own backyard.

Take a few minutes on this first day of summer and explore with your children.

Here is a bonus notebook page for you to use to follow up your outdoor time!

First Day of Summer Notebook Page – Free Download!

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Barb — 11 Comments

OHC Summer Series #1: Mosquitoes and World of Smell

Outdoor Hour Challenges
Summer Series #1 Mosquitoes and World of Smell

Train Your Senses

Sight: Begin to learn how long it takes for your eyes to adjust as the evening gets darker. Use your sense of sight to observe mosquitoes or mosquito larvae. Can you observe any birds or bats eating mosquitoes?
Smell: Sit quietly in your yard, perhaps at different times of day, observing any smells of summer that you can recognize. Can you smell more at night when your other senses are not as useful? Can you smell more on a damp night or a dry night? Does a certain smell bring back a memory?
Hearing: Can you hear any mosquitoes or other insects buzzing?

Inside Preparation Work:
1. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 411-415 on mosquitoes. Pay special attention to page 414 where there is a list of places that mosquito larvae can be found. Read through Lesson 105 to equip yourself for your mosquito study.
2. Read in Discover Nature at Sundown pages 14-26. This section will give you some general information about how humans and other living creatures use their sense of smell. We will study several of these living things as part of this series of challenge: moths, evening primroses, mosquitoes, frogs, and bats.

Outdoor Hour Time:
1. This week spend your 15 minutes outdoors at sundown. As you start your Summer Series of Challenges, try to establish a routine of going outdoors in the evening to spend some time observing your backyard or neighborhood as the light fades. Use the suggests above to use your senses during your outdoor time. After reading in Discover Nature At Sundown, you will have some ideas for night-blooming flowers to look for and to smell. Also the book suggests observing sounds on a damp night and a dry night and comparing your results.

2. Also, as part of this challenge, you can try to collect some live mosquito larvae. Here are some instructions:

Look in a pond, along a stream, in a rain barrel or any where else you can find some standing water.
Collect a jar full of water to bring home to observe. Scoop the water rapidly and hopefully you will get some larvae or pupae.
The Handbook of Nature Study suggests putting the jar on your desk to observe the “wigglers”. Use the suggestions from Lesson 105 to study your mosquitoes. Here is a link to a webpage that has more information about mosquitoes: How Stuff Works: Mosquitoes

Follow-Up Activity:
1. There is a notebook activity included with this challenge is to keep track of all the smells of summer that you find over the next few weeks. As a new smell comes to your attention, make sure to write it down in your journal. There is set of free mosquito notebook pages available over on NotebookingFairy.com.

2. If you were successful in collecting and then observing mosquito larvae, record your thoughts in your nature journal or on the notebook page provided in the Summer Series ebook. If you did not find any mosquito larvae, you can record the things you learned about mosquitoes instead.

If you would like all the Summer Series Challenges in one place, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. Here is a link to a complete description:
Summer Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Barb — 7 Comments

Spring Tree Update: Blossoms on our Tulip Tree

Our tulip tree is blooming like crazy! I have never seen so many blossoms on this tree and the bees have noticed too. The buzzing starts as soon as the sun rises and continues most of the day.

Wouldn’t you want to buzz around this blossom and collect some pollen too? The colors and patterns are very impressive if you take the time to observe them up close. You can see clearly the inner part that will become the helicopter seeds in the fall right there in the middle of the blossom.

You can see how the sepals bend back and expose the flowers. The design of this flower truly shows the finger of our Grand Creator.

Here is a view of the tree with all the flowers….it is amazing the difference between the seasons in this tree.

Our next update will be with the Summer Series of Challenges.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Barb — 1 Comment

Poppies: Garden Beauties

“I know of nothing so deceptive as the appearance of the poppy buds, which, rough and hairy, droop so naturally that it seems as if their weight must compel the stem to bend; and yet, if we test it, we find the stem is as stiff as if made of steel wire.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 560

“The poppies shed their sepals when the flowers expand; they offer quantities of pollen to the bees, which are very fond of it. The seed capsule develops holes around the top, through which the seeds are shaken, a few at a time.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 562

Observations suggested in the Handbook of Nature Study:
Look at the bud of the poppy. How is it covered? How many sepals? Can you see where they unite? Is the stem bent because the bud is heavy? What happens to this crook in the stem when the flower opens? Does the crook always straighten out completely?

We used these suggestions to really look at our poppies that are planted in a pot on our back deck. I put the pot near our hummingbird feeder and I quite often see a bee or a hummer stop by for a little something as they go by.

I really do need to plant some more of these beautiful flowers in my garden next year.

If you are interested in using your garden as a nature study focus this summer, please consider using the Outdoor Hour Challenge Gardens and Flowering Plants Ebook. Here is a link for more information.

Outdoor Hour Challenges for families since 2008!