Here is an updated collage of photos from my “wildside”. There were lots of insects this time to observe and the different grasses are so diverse in their growing and the way they make seeds. Some are like velcro and some look almost like wheat. Some are red and some are green or almost yellow.
I am finding this project very satisfying.
Enjoy!
If you are interested, here are the other two posts in this series:
Our crop of blackberries growing near our “wildside” is amazing this year. The abundance of blossoms and new little berries makes my mouth water just thinking of the summer eating we will enjoy.
The coreopsis is bursting with color and I have vases and vases filled with these cheerful blooms.
You will need to click over to Flickr to read the notes for this photo. This is my fence-line garden and it happens to have my tallest sunflower so far this season. This is a volunteer flower and the birds must have planted the seed sometime for us all to enjoy.
Just a little snapshot from the garden this week. From now on, the garden’s look will change almost daily.
It’s not too late! You can still plant some things in your garden to enjoy this summer even if you plant something in a pot on your porch.
Our Outdoor Hour Challenge Earthworm Study was very informal and done as we did our gardening this past weekend. Our garden boxes were tilled in preparation of our seedlings and in the process we uncovered lots of glorious earthworms. What amazing creatures!
I am always worried that we will hurt them if we dig them up but they soon snuggle back down into the soil, more quickly than you think they should.
We did a formal study of earthworms earlier in the year when we studied them in our science dissection unit. Here is a diagram of the innards of an earthworm.
Mr. B also did a very good sketch of an earthworm for his nature journal.
Rest assured that we will be continuing our study of earthworms as we tend our garden this summer.
You can find the Outdoor Hour Challenge for Earthworms with links, study ideas, and more here on my blog:
OHC Spring #9 Earthworms.
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Outdoor Hour Challenge
Spring Series #10Insect Study-Ants
Inside Preparation Work:
Read pages 294-300 in the Handbook of Nature Study to learn more about insects in general. You might like to introduce your child to the development and structure of insects using the information from the Handbook of Nature Study.
Read pages 369-373 in the Handbook of Nature Study for information about the ant. Make some notes after reading Lesson 91 on the Field Observations of Ants so you will have some ideas for observation when you take your children outdoors. This might be a fun challenge to use a magnifying lens!
*Note if you are using the free download of the HNS, The Ways of the Ant are on page 419 and in the Homeschool Freebie version of the HNS, the ant is in the Insects PDF on page 114.
We have used educational ant farms over the years in our home and they are a fascinating way to study ants up close. I highly suggest this as a family activity. Here is a link to the ant farm we have used in the past: Uncle Milton’s Giant Ant Farm.
Outdoor Hour Time:
For this challenge you can spend some of your outdoor time looking for ants. Ask your children if they have noticed ants in your backyard and have them investigate to find some ants to observe. Look under rocks, logs, along sidewalks, under leaves, on the bark of trees, and on garden plants. Use the suggestions you listed in your inside preparation time to learn some more about your ants.
Some Ideas For a Simple Ant Study
Follow Up Time:Talk about the ants you were able to observe during your outdoor time. As always, allow time for a nature journal entry. If you are keeping a simple nature journal of your own, remember that a journal entry can be as easy as a sketch, label, and a date. You can also use the notebook page from the Spring Series Ebook or a blank nature journal page from the sidebar of my blog.
You may be interested in viewing this YouTube video from PBS and NOVA, Lord of the Ants. It is rather long but you can choose to watch just a portion of it if you want to with your children. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKbj3ZDmvdU&feature=channel
If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one book, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the winter months as well. Please see this entry for more details:
Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation
(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Were there always this many snakes and we just never noticed them?
I kid you not….yesterday my son and I were were in the car and one block from our house there was a dead snake in the middle of the road.
At first we thought it was a fake snake because it was so colorful. I actually *turned around* and went back so we could get out and look at it. My son was shocked! He could not believe that I was going to actually go back and look at it up close. Well, I looked at it from the car window while he got out and took a photo of it with my phone. It was not in bad shape so it didn’t seem weird to take a photo. I really just wanted to go home and make a positive identification using the photo. I will spare you the photo this time. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) The one we saw was much yellower in color than this one in the photo which made it very conspicuous.
It was a kingsnake. It looked like this one: California Kingsnake. Here is a good article: California King-snake.
These are good snakes…they eat rattlesnakes.
Okay, so now in less than a week I have seen two of the common snakes from our list of snakes from our snake study. It makes me wonder whether they were always here before and I did not notice them. I have been left in no doubt this week of the value of nature study and learning about what is right in our own neighborhoods.
It is a good thing we are not studying mountain lions…..
The ebooks are finished. Our school year is officially over. Summer has begun.
Harvesting oregano and making some bundles to dry was first on the list. We also picked another quart of strawberries, a few peas, a couple of stray carrots, and the last of the spinach.
We planted zinnias, cosmos, Shasta daisies, Ireland Bells, more cilantro, moonflowers, and lots of seedlings. We were able to get all our seedlings into the ground: pumpkin, acorn squash, zucchini, tomatoes, a variety of peppers, dill, and a variety of sunflowers. It makes me tired just thinking about all that we planted. Now the weather needs to stay warm and I need to keep my eyes on all my babies. My husband and boys were such a great help this week in the garden.
Weeding and pruning the butterfly garden was next on the list.
Here is another photo. If you click over to Flickr for either of these photos, I have made notes telling you what we have planted there.
One last angle of the butterfly garden.
Checking the garden beds and seeing what is growing is always a fun task this time of year. We have a few big mulleins growing along the fence.
Our baby Western scrub jay is flying now and he regularly sits outside our window waiting for his mother.
Moving from our garden now to our other adventures.
Several long hikes this past week…one hike where we saw the snake and some that were not so exciting. Here is the predominant wildflower on our hiking trail right now, Purple Chinese Houses.
We also went on a long bike ride and the boys had a blast.
My oldest son and I shared some photo moments at the lake when we stopped for a break.
Sand angels and Canadian geese….sounds good to me, except for the sand in the shoes.
I had to stop my bike and take a photo of this phlox alongside the trail. It was just too pretty to pass by.
So I think that catches me up for the last week or so in our world. I love this time of year. We have two Outdoor Hour Challenges to finish up but they will be posted soon. I have emailed out all the orders for ebooks that I have received so if you ordered and did not receive your files, please email me and let me know. I am really looking forward to starting the summer series of challenges with our family.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
So who said they rarely see snakes in the wild? Me? Yikes, I should have know better than that.
Today on our hike I took a little side trail because I could see some delphiniums blooming on the hillside. I was by myself and down about 20 yards from where I left Mr. A and our dog sitting in the shade.
I was busy taking photos when I looked to my left and just a few feet away was this huge snake laying half on the trail and half in the dry grass.
He was so still that I thought maybe he was dead and at first I couldn’t see his head. I hollered up to my son not to come down with the dog because there was a really big snake. He wanted to know what kind because immediately we think rattlesnake when we see a big snake.
I checked his tail and didn’t see a rattle and then I moved ever so slightly closer to see if I could locate his head. Wow! He was a big snake but I did manage to see the head and it was round and not diamond shaped so I felt fairly comfortable identifying it as something other than a rattler. I am guessing that he was at least 5 feet long. I snapped a few photos so we could take a closer look once we got home and make a positive identification. I didn’t get the whole snake in the photo and I did not take a photo of his head since I did not want to get that close to a live snake.
We had done the preparation work (you can read our entry HERE) for all the snakes on our list last week so I thought it was either a kingsnake or a gopher snake. We came home and pulled out the field guide and sure enough….gopher snake or Pituophis melanoleucus. The guide says gopher snakes can be up to 7 feet long. They eat small animals such as gophers, mice, ground squirrels, and small rabbits. They squeeze their prey until movement stops and then it swallows it whole.
I found this graphic online for our future reference:
Know Your Snakes: Differences Between Gopher Snake and Rattlesnake
I knew we wanted to do more snake study but I never dreamed a subject would come our way so quickly.
Here we are at the beginning of June…so glad that summer is almost here in our part of the world. This month’s carnival is a great mix of challenges and old as well as new faces. I hope you enjoy reading the entries and hopefully they will encourage you to get outdoors this month and do some nature study with your children.
This week on Friday, June 4th, I will be posting the very last Spring Series Challenge. I will be taking a break for a couple of weeks but look for the first Summer Challenge on June 18th.
Don’t forget the new Summer Nature Study: Using Your Senses ebook will give you lots of ideas for outdoor learning during this season. I will post about it here on the blog when I get it ready, hopefully today or tomorrow. It is jam packed with great stuff for you summer nature study!
I want to thank everyone who took the time to share your links both in the challenges and for the blog carnival. You all are so encouraging to me as I read every entry. I wish you a great June outdoors with your families.
Spring Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges: May Topics
Apple Tree
Cats
Snakes
Earthworms
Samantha shares some insights about nature study in this lovely entry: It Begins With Me. Although this entry is not part of any challenge, it is a wonderful reflection on how we need to remember that passion and interest in nature starts with us as the role models.
Spring Series #1 Spring Tree Study
Phyllis at All Things Beautiful discovered a new tree in their yard and their family was on a quest to identify it as part of their spring nature study. What a great way to learn about a new tree.
Quinn from Inside the Picket Fence shares their spring tree study with some heavenly photos! This post will make you feel like spring.
Spring Series #4 Dandelions
Amy at Together for a Reason shares their dandelion study this time and I love the way her photos tell a story. She has a brand new baby in the house and she still made the time to complete this study with all the rest of her children. I find that very inspiring.
Michelle from Delightful Learning also completed a dandelion study with her family. This is one dandelion study you don’t want to miss…they made a delicious dandelion dish that most of the family loved to taste. Thanks for the extra effort and information.
Loni from Hearts in Training shares a really thorough study of dandelions. So much great information here and two lovely notebook pages she has graciously shared for us all to use in our own dandelion study.
Amber from Refined Metals Academy got their nature study started with this dandelion study. If you have little ones, check out how she made this study fit her crew. I hope to see more entries from Amber in the future.
Spring Series #5 Year-Long Cattail Study
Angie/Pebblekeeper shares their cattail study on their blog Petra School. They did an awesome job studying their patch of cattails and you must make sure to click the link in her entry for their photo gallery. It will inspire you to look for your own cattails to study.
Alex from Serendipity Home School completed another cattail study with her children. This is their third season and this time their cattail were really puffy.
Spring Series #6 Apple Trees
Alex over at Serendipity Home School submits their entry for apple trees. I love the leaf rubbing on the nature journal page and the extra books she suggests. Thanks Alex.
Apple trees and more were studied as part of this challenge for Tricia at Homeschool Highlights. Lots of inspiring photos will encourage you to get outdoors and do your own tree study soon.
Spring Series #7 Mammal Study-Cats
Tricia and her children completed a study of their family cats as part of the Spring Series Challenges. Maybe it is because I am a cat lover but I really enjoyed their entry.
Clara the cat was the subject of Alex from Serendipity Home School‘s cat study. They made lots of great observations and their photos are adorable.
Spring Series #8 Reptile Study-Snakes
Angie/Pebblekeeper at Petra School has submitted their snake study for carnival readers. She is one awesome snake mama!
Another great snake entry. (Yes, I said that.) Check out Tricia at Homeschool Highlights for their family’s study of snakes.
Spring Series #9 Earthworms
Tricia at Homeschool Highlights worked on this earthworm challenge with her children and much to their disappointment, they didn’t find any earthworms to study in real life. They will be ready when they do find some in the garden.
Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations shares their earthworm study. Check out the worm jar in action.
OHC #1: Let’s Get Started
Mosey has entered their very first Outdoor Hour Challenge entry as part of the carnival. She writes about the enthusiasm that her children had as part of this challenge. Please pop over and welcome her to the challenges.
OHC #4 Focus Area Challenge
Loni from Hearts in Training shares an entry titled, Only a Male Jumping Spider.
OHC #15 Garden Flowers – Drawing
Pauline from Giggly HQ has completed a lovely entry as part of this challenge. Thanks for inspiring us to draw in our nature journal.
OHC #21 Notebook Challenge
Loni at Hearts in Training shares their cicada study and a great notebook page. Thanks Loni!
Crop Plants: Strawberries
This entry from Phyllis will make you want to run out and study your very own strawberries. Check out their family entry on All Things Beautiful.
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 June 30th, 2010 and all entries from June are eligible. Here is the link for submissions: LINK.
Thanks again,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
I waited to post my snake entry until the results of the snake poll were in. It was interesting to me to see just how my readers experience snakes. There were 113 people who responded to the poll.
How Often Do You See Snakes?
Frequently 9 votes
A few times a month 17 votes
A few times a year 55 votes
Rarely 24 votes
Never 7 votes
What Kind of Snakes Have You Seen?
Garter 78 votes
Milk 8 votes
Water 37 votes
Rattlesnake 18 votes
Other 64 votes
We are not a big snake family. Although we have had pet iguanas in the past and currently we have fire-bellied toads, snakes have not been a big fascination with my children. Our only on-going contact with snakes has been through our cats when they bring a dead one home and leave it on our doorstep. They are usually the small kind that don’t bring much distress when we see them.
I do not take many photos of snakes so I decided to share our fire-bellied toads instead. This is Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley.
Occasionally we will see bigger more scary snakes on our hikes. This spring we have seen two rattlesnakes, one dead and one alive and curled up practically in the middle of the trail. We gave him some distance and left him alone.
We decided to research the garter snake since this is the most common one we see in our backyard or neighborhood. We found more information on this website: Identifying California Garter Snakes. After looking at the ranges and the photos of the garter snakes we potentially could see in our area, we narrowed our garter snakes down to two kinds:
Sierra Garter Snake or the Mountain Garter Snake
We made drawings and journal entries for both these snakes and the next time we come across one, we will be better equipped to identify it.
We also made a list of potential snakes to study in the future:
California Kingsnake
Western Rattlesnake
Gopher snake
California Striped Racer
Western Yellow Bellied Racer
Northern Rubber Boa
My son brought me the current issue of the National Wildlife magazine to show me an article on garter snakes. Lots of interesting bits in the article that helped us understand this snake a little better. (If you click the link above it will take you to an online version of the article, scroll down to the part about garter snakes.)
I encourage all to pick a snake and take a few minutes to learn some facts about it. I find it interesting that the more I know about something, the more I appreciate its beauty. Yes, even snakes.
These are our cats Cocoa and Espresso who in 2006 came to live with us. Yes, we can tell them apart…you look at their ears and one has white hair inside and the other does not. They also have very different personalities and habits so once you get to know them you really don’t even need to look at their ears to identify them.
It seems like we have a never-ending cat study at our house. We have two beautiful Bombay cats (we are sure that they are mixed with something else as well) that love to socialize with us during our homeschooling day. We can’t help but to see these gals up close on a regular basis.
We did do a little more research on the Bombay cat breed and we discovered that we have English Bombays and not American Bombays. It was obvious when we took a look at the differences. We know that they are mixed with something else because they have some longer fur and some white hair in a spot on their chest but they are most definitely related to the Bombay breed.
Our cats are remarkable sleepers. They spend most of their days sleeping in various parts of the house. As the photo above shows, they have always been able to find a comfortable place to sleep.
Cocoa loves to sleep on Mr. A’s bed curled up in his big fleece gecko.
Here she is sleeping on my bed. I put out a piece of fleece fabric for her to sleep on or else she will curl up on my pillow. She will sleep on her back like this for long periods of time. I think it is very strange.
Espresso is more of a “sleep where it is convenient gal”. She sleeps on kitchen chairs, curled up in a box, or laying on the back deck in the sun.
They are both big time hunters and they will watch from the inside of the window as the birds sit in the feeders. Their tails will be swishing, ears alert, eyes wide, making cat sounds as they watch.
They also like to frequent the school table and sit on papers, binders, or textbooks. No matter that we might be actually trying to work…they make themselves at home.
Our lives are full of the entertaining things that cats do and especially since we are home all the time do we enjoy having them around to keep us company and warm. We recently found one hiding in a paper bag and we left the bag out for a few days and it became the favored sleeping spot for both cats.
My husband does not consider himself a cat lover but these two feline girls have captured his heart. They will even jump into his lap for a good scratch under the chin and then they reward him with a lap full of purring, furry, sleeping cat. Cats are smart.
This was a fun challenge and my boys and I decided we could write about our cats every week, telling a new tale of their sweetness.
Instead, next time I will posting about our snake studies…..not quite such a lovable entry.
