We haven’t had much of a chance to study mushrooms up close in the last few weeks but we did over our summer break. Our trip to Oregon gave us plenty to look at and identify. Identifying mushrooms is really a difficult task.
As part of our biology course, we studied the mushroom’s life cycle and my boys made nature journal entries using some of the photos we had collected of mushrooms in our area.
“Fungi, as a whole, are a great boon to the world. Without them our forests would be choked out with dead wood. Decay is simply the process by which fungi and other organisms break down dead material, so that the major part of it returns to the air in gaseous form, and the remainder, now mostly humus, mingles with the soil.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 715
I think if that is the only thing we learn about fungus/mushrooms from our study we will have accomplished a greater understanding of how the forest ecosystem works. There is great beauty in these living things and a wonderful purpose to their creation.
Our mushroom season will soon be upon us and we will be out and enjoying a whole array of fungus to observe. We will be using the diagram on page 717 to categorize the mushrooms we see as we go along. I am totally inspired by Casey’s study: Extraordinary World: Mushrooms.
Here is a set of our mushroom photos from the last year that I gathered on Flickr if you would like to see what we have in our area of California: Mushrooms
Mushrooms! Fungus! Molds! Ask my children and they will tell you that I am fascinated with these things when we find them during our outdoor time. They even call me very affectionately the “Fungus Lady”.
I found this video during our last study of mushrooms and I would love for you to watch it in order to prepare you for your study of mushrooms. This video is very well done and will help your children understand how a mushroom grows.
You will need to click over to YouTube.com to view this video. Please note: Turn down the sound if the music is too much for you. As always, please preview the video on YouTube and I do not endorse any other video that may come up after this one. There are some questionable videos about mushrooms.
If you do not think you will observe any mushrooms during your Outdoor Time, you can still complete the Inside Preparation work as a way to be ready the next time you do see a mushroom.
Outdoor Hour Challenge
Autumn Series #9 Mushrooms
(See Also Challenge #41)
Inside Preparation Work
Mushrooms and Other Fungi-read the overview starting on page 714 and continuing to page 719. Page 719 shows the parts of a mushroom with labels.
Outdoor Hour Time The ideal study of ferns, mushrooms, and fungi would be to experience them outdoors in their natural habitat. Use your 15 to 20 minutes of outdoor time this week to enjoy a search for some kind of mushroom. Your particular area may not have these subjects readily at hand but let your friends, family, and neighbors know that you are studying mushrooms and with more pairs of eyes looking you may be able to find something to study up close.
Enjoy your time outdoors whether you can find this week’s subject or not. Remember to look at the sky and comment on the weather. Take time to notice your tree from your year long tree study. Collect a few items to take inside to sketch into your nature journal. Just because the topic of this challenge is mushrooms, you do not have to limit yourself to that narrow focus during your 15 to 20 minutes of outdoor time.
Follow-Up Activity
Spend a few minutes once inside to discuss your experiences from your nature walk.Are there questions that need to be answered or items that need to be identified? Make a note of any topics that come up that you can research further in the Handbook of Nature Study or at your local library.
Make an opportunity for a nature journal entry. The diagrams on pages 695 and 719 could be sketched into the nature journal. I have created a notebook page for you to use in your nature journal to record your mushroom observations and it is listed in the free downloads section of the sidebar of my blog.
“Since mushrooms are especially good subjects for watercolor and pencil studies, it would add much to the interest of the work if each pupil, or the school as a whole, should make a portfolio of sketches of all the species found. With each drawing there should be made on a supplementary sheet a spore print of the species.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 718
Spore prints are another idea for an activity following up the mushroom study. I would only do this activity with older students who truly understand that mushrooms can be poisonous.
Here are some instructions you can download: Mushroom Spore Prints or this blog entry.
You can use the provided notebook page to sketch a mushroom that you observed during your Outdoor Time or you can use it to copy the sketch from page 719 in the Handbook of Nature Study, labeling the different parts of a mushroom.
We decided that woodpeckers are very beautiful birds. The two kinds we see most frequently are Acorn woodpeckers and White-Headed woodpeckers and although they are mostly black and white, they are truly lovely to look at.
“The clown-faced Acorn Woodpecker is a common bird of western oak forests. It lives in extended family groups, and all members of the group spend hours and hours storing thousands of acorns in carefully tended holes in trees and telephone poles.”
This tree is at my dad’s house and it has about a zillion holes in it from woodpeckers. He is plagued with woodpeckers pecking on the side of his house.
I found this old nature journal entry made for our backyard woodpecker….makes me smile.
We don’t have as much variety in our feeders or yard at this time of the year. The bird variety picks up as the winter marches on and by the time of the Great Backyard Bird Count, we are in full swing.
No woodpecker sightings this week but we enjoyed watching the birds we did have in our yard.
We have a beautiful walnut tree in our backyard and it has always given us an abundance of nuts each autumn. The photo shown here is from a few years ago and shows part of our walnut harvest. Around this time of year, we are usually gathering oodles of nuts to dry and crack to eat and save for our baking.
Not this year.
Grey squirrels came and ate every last nut in our crop. Climbing into the tree, they would pick the nuts wrapped in their green outer coats, strip the casings off, and then proceed to crack the shells to get to the meat.
Piles and piles of shells and green casings dropped to the ground, littering the sidewalk and garden below. I thought surely they couldn’t eat them all, but they did.
I have mixed feelings about the whole situation. On one hand, I love having the furry little guys in my yard and away from my birdfeeders. On the other hand, I would have liked to have had a few nuts in my pantry for cookies and muffins and salads. This autumn will be known as the year with no nuts.
Our front yard also has a squirrel that visits quite frequently. It is a different variety of squirrel and he is FAST.
(I shared this photo a few weeks ago during our tree study…we think it is a Fox Squirrel.)
He is busy eating the seeds from the tulip tree.
Look at those feet! No wonder they can climb and jump like they do!
He nibbles and then scurries off down the street, as if he has a regular route he takes to dine at various spots in the neighborhood.
He is fun to watch as he bounds down the street and up onto the neighbor’s narrow fence top. My son, who does a lot of his schoolwork in the living room at the table by the window, calls my attention to our resident squirrel all the time. We are getting to know him quite well this year.
The other day as I was driving down a fairly busy street in town, a squirrel decided to run out in front of me. I know from experience that they usually dart out of the way at the last minute and I try not to get too excited. This one seemed to look me in the eye as he sat in my lane of traffic, a crazy game of chicken. Starting to move, he zigged and zagged a little in front of me and stood still again as I got closer. I slowed a bit and started coaching him to “Get out of the way!” At the last possible moment, he ran off to the side of the road and quickly up a tree. Why do they do that?
For the most part, we enjoy our neighborhood squirrels and find a great deal of entertainment value in this rodent. Our favorite squirrel actually walks the telephone line at a busy intersection in town. We see him probably once a week doing his tight-rope act, defying gravity and giving us something to be in awe about with this little one of God’s creation.
Here is our link to our previous squirrel study if you would like to read that one: Squirrel Study
Watch this video to see another common squirrel in our area…the California Ground Squirrel. This video was taken last spring on a hike we took not too far from our home.
We had a perfect morning for a weather study as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge Autumn Series. The air was cold, the wind was blowing, and the leaves were raining down all around us. It *felt* like autumn. Note: This morning it was 38 degrees outside..that is cold.
There are still loads of leaves left on the sweet gum trees but as of this morning, the fall color is breaking through. Reds, oranges, burgundy, and every shade in between are all popping out on the trees.
Still a few insect friends in the flower garden…..look at his wings in the sun. Gorgeous and amazing. I think this is some kind of hoover fly.
We came back in to warm up with a bowl of soup and then our weather notebook pages were filled in and filed away in our nature journals.
I love having a specific subject for our nature study….it motivates me to spend time with the boys outdoors each week. Don’t let anyone tell you that high school age boys do not enjoy nature study.
The challenge this week is one that can be done by every participant without regard to location.
This week we will start a year long, four season weather observation study. This challenge will be to make a record of your weather during the current season. I have put together a simple Seasonal Weather Notebook Page. You can use it for your records or you can simply record the information in your a nature journal.
Read pages 790-791 in the Handbook of Nature Study which includes the sections on Thermometer Scales in Use and Distribution of the Temperature and Pressure. Read the sections with a view to finding a few facts to share with your children this week about what influences the temperature and the atmosphere around us.
“The heat received on the earth from the sun is the controlling factor in all weather conditions.”Handbook of Nature Study, page 791
It might even be a good idea to purchase an outdoor thermometer so you can record the temperatures in your own backyard.
Outdoor Time
Pick a day this week to spend 15-20 minutes outdoors observing the weather and recording the conditions using the Seasonal Weather Study notebook page. We will be completing a weather study challenge during each season in the coming year and the more detailed you get in your observations, the easier it will be to compare the weather from season to season.
Follow-Up Activity
Spend a few minutes discussing what you experienced with your children. Find out if they have any questions about the weather that you can research together this week. The Handbook of Nature Study on pages 812-814 lists numerous specific weather related activities that will help demonstrate weather concepts for your children. Please complete any of the activities that interest your family and that you have time to complete. For your nature journal this week, fill out the Seasonal Weather Observation notebook page. If you prefer to record you observations into your nature journal and not on a notebook page, look to the sample blank chart on page 807 of the Handbook of Nature Study for a basic record keeping idea.
“Let us make it a daily habit to give a thought to weather conditions; the wind directions; the presence or absence of dew during the hours of evening, night, or early morning; and the readings of the barometer, thermometer, and the weather maps if any are available.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 806
My oldest son and I had the opportunity to take a long walk together and enjoy the oaks and pines along the walking trail. He has such long legs that he ends up way in front of me most of the time but that gives me a chance to snap a few photos as we walk. He stops every now and then to let me catch up…..yep, I feel like an old lady.
Oaks make me happy. I love the variety of oaks with their different shapes and here in California we have quite a few to study. Last year we kept track of a Live Oak growing in our backyard. We also have quite a few scrub oaks in the back of our property.Here is a previous post on our oaks: Oak Challenge Entry
There is nothing like the smell of warm oak leaves in the sun.
Oak galls fascinate me and the boys think they are pretty interesting as well. Oak galls are basically abnormalities on plants caused by insects. We noticed that there are not as many as usual this autumn and we wonder what that means.
I love the shape of oak trees and this one at my dad’s house is a big old oak. I took an informal poll of my three boys and asked them which they preferred: oaks or pines? Two oaks and one pine…..I think if I had to make a quick answer without thinking too much I would pick oaks as well.
We have noticed how different the acorns are from different kinds of oaks.
We had a wet morning to observe the oaks in our backyard but I really like the way the wetness brought out the texture in the bark.
Here are leaves from one of our oaks. We are assuming the red parts are the new growth. We will have to keep checking to see if we are right.
I really like using the Peterson Field Guide-Western Trees book for our tree identification. The color plates show the leaves, the buds, and the acorns. Once you get an idea of which oak you think you have, there is a reference to a page number to read the narrative account along with a photo and range map. You can find the tree guide listed on the Autumn Series Squidoo lens (scroll down to the additional resources section).
We made leaf prints last week with our oak leaves and they are included in our nature journals for this challenge.
These challenges are helping us stay motivated to get outdoors which is always a good thing.
Just another beautiful oak day with a beautiful sky.
Here we go down the trail. The rain stopped a few hours earlier and we decided to take advantage of the break in the storm to hike down the hill and see what we could see. Little did we know that right after I took this photo we would see something that would make us stop dead in our tracks.
There in the middle of the trail were scattered deer bones and one of the hooves.
A little further down the trail was the biggest pile of bear scat I have ever seen. Yikes. (No photos of that I promise.)
We have been hiking this trail for a very long time and we have never seen either of these things before.
We did a quick consultation and decided to finish our hike down the hill but on the return back up the hill, going past the pile of bones, I started to get a little nervous. I was sort of glad to get back to where we had parked the car…if you know what I mean.
I am not usually spooked by this sort of stuff but it was a big pile of bones and a huge pile of scat. It looked fairly fresh but maybe it was because of the recent rain….or not.
