Posts

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Barb — 19 Comments

Nature Study: Finding the Ordinary to be Extraordinary

Extraordinary in the Ordinary @handbookofnaturestudy

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.

Sebastian actually gave me this idea that I think would be a great challenge for nature study close to home. In order to start developing the idea, we challenged ourselves to go out in our backyard and find something extraordinary. I decided we needed a little clearer definition.

Extraordinary: beyond the usual, far more than usual, more than expected

It is that “more than expected” part that we want to develop an eye for in our family.

Here are the five things we will be learning about from the Handbook of Nature Study, the field guides from our nature shelf, or internet sources like WhatBird.com and eNature.com.

The blue of the morning glory is outstanding and we have never done a formal study of this garden flower. Now is the time to do it since we have lots of blossoms to observe. We already have decided how extraordinarily blue this flower is…not very common in flowers I think.

While we were outside, the cat was chasing this Alligator lizard. Lizards are not an extraordinary creature in our backyard but as we watched this lizard, we started to wonder about its defense mechanism…the breaking off of the tail to distract its attacker. We are going to do some more research about this extraordinary ability.

This California Towhee is a regular visitor to our feeder, or rather under our feeder. We have never taken time to focus our nature study on this particular bird but now we will. I’m sure there is something extraordinary about it that we don’t know yet. The most visible difference we have noticed about the California Towhee is its very long tail…hmmm….maybe that is extraordinary.

We have noticed an increase in hummingbirds in our yard this summer and there have been two in particular that we would like to study more in depth. I was unable to get a photo of the hummingbirds but thought you might enjoy seeing my new feeder. I think maybe the two unusual hummers we saw were migrating and I would love to learn more about where some of our hummingbirds go at different times of the year.

Caterpillars have been dropping out of the Sweet gum trees and before they can crawl away, the birds swoop down and eat them. These caterpillars are busily eating the leaves from the tree but we don’t know exactly what they will be once they go though their life cycle. Look at those colors, now that is extraordinary! We are going to try to identify these critters as part of our challenge.

Now we have a list of things to investigate.
1. Morning glories
2. Alligator lizards and their tail
3. California Towhee
4. Migrating hummingbirds
5. Caterpillar from the Sweet gum tree.

You can take the challenge to find the extraordinary in the ordinary if you are up to it! Find something in your yard to focus on and really see the beauty, the design, and the magnificence of something that perhaps you have been overlooking. It could be as simple as the dandelion in the crack of your sidewalk. It could be the robin gathering worms in your lawn. It could be the ants on your kitchen counter. The possibilities are endless.

If you take the challenge and you blog about it, leave me a comment and I will come over and read about it.

I will be posting our results over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned.

Posted on August 28, 2009 by Barb — 3 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge: Crop Plants-Tomato

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Crop Plants #7
Tomatoes

Inside Preparation Work
We have come to the last of our crop plant challenges. This week we will be observing tomatoes. Since there is no section in the Handbook of Nature Study for the tomato, I found a couple of things that will help you share information with your children. You might like to read the article and watch the video in preparation for this challenge.

1. Read pages 20-21 “Gardening and Nature Study”. This small section will remind you of the value of keeping a garden or at least a small box or container with a few plants to observe.

2. Make sure to get fresh tomatoes to observe during your follow-up time. The ideal way would be to pick them from your own garden but buying them at the grocery or at your local farmers market will work just as well. If you can, have on hand two different kinds of tomatoes to compare during your follow-up time: cherry tomato, plum tomato, beefsteak tomato, green tomato, or different heirloom varieties.

Outdoor Time 3. Make sure to spend 10-15 minutes outdoors in your backyard or a near-by park. If you have tomatoes or other crop plants growing in your garden, make sure to spend some time observing the plants, insects, birds, or other living things that visit from time to time. Collect a few leaves or flowers to put in your press and then in your nature journal. You might check on your seasonal tree to see if it has changed since your last observation.

Follow-Up Activity
4. Take a few minutes to talk about anything your child found outside that was interesting. Use the Handbook of Nature study, previous challenges, or local field guides to learn more information. Give you child a chance to express in their own words something they experienced outdoors.

5. If you have a real tomato to observe and taste, you can make a journal entry to record a sketch or thoughts about the tomato. (If you purchased the Crop Plants notebook pages, you will have a page to record your observations.)

Here are some journal ideas to get you started:

If your tomato has a stem and leaf, make sure to sketch those in your journal.
Measure the size of your tomato with a measuring tape.
Compare different tomatoes.
Cut your tomato crosswise and observe the seed pattern.
Describe the texture of the tomato skin and the inside flesh of the tomato.
Take time to observe the smell of the tomato and record your description.
Remove some seeds and compare them to other seeds you have studied during the crop plant challenges. (size, shape, location, color, texture)
Make a watercolor painting of your tomato or just its cross-section.

New for this series of challenges are custom made notebook pages for each crop plant we will study. I have designed simple to use pages that will complement each challenge and will be an easy way to start a nature journal. Each of the eight notebook pages is in full color, but they are just as great in black and white.

SAMPLE

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Barb — 2 Comments

Our Strawberry Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge

“Red, shiny, green leaves and yellow spots. It is oval in shape with a bulge on top. The leaves are short with small black lines. It is cool to the touch and slightly fuzzy. It is extremely sweet.”
Quote from my son’s journal page

I didn’t need to do much encouraging to get the boys to participate in this nature study challenge. They are always eager to help in the strawberry box. In fact the box belongs to my middle son and he keeps it well tended.

Funny thing is that many times he comes up into the house empty handed….wonder where those berries go between the garden and the kitchen?

Pick, wash, eat….you can’t get any fresher than that!

We used the lesson ideas in the Handbook of Nature Study to focus a little on the strawberry and to see what we could learn. Then we went out to our garden to investigate our plants. We have two varieties of strawberries: June berries and Everbearing. We have a big crop of berries that we harvest early in the summer and then we have plants that keep on producing a few berries all summer long.

We observed the blossom and leaves.

We saw this little berry where the petals of the flower had just dropped off and the berry is just starting to poke out and be seen.

We found a little bit bigger green berry to compare to the others.

Here are some berries growing large and pink. Look at all those seeds on the outside of the strawberry.

Like I said, not many berries end up in the kitchen but we did manage to bring up some to complete a nature journal page before they were gobbled up as well.

Here in California strawberries are a popular crop and you don’t have to go far to find a roadside stand selling fresh berries of all kinds. My husband has been working down in the Monterey area and they have strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries growing commercially there. He is loving the fresh fruits and promises to bring some home when he is able. He has been working on the Lockheed Fire since last week and we are missing him terribly. He is our hero though and I know that he doesn’t mind doing his job when the need arises.

Hope you enjoy your strawberry study soon and don’t forget to share your blog entries.
Crop Plants Notebook Pages – Companion to the Crop Plants Challenges

Custom made notebook pages for each crop plant challenge. I have designed simple to use pages that will complement each challenge and will be an easy way to start a nature journal. Each of the eight notebook pages is in full color, but they are just as great in black and white. These notebook pages can be purchased for $2.50.

Posted on August 22, 2009 by Barb — Leave a comment

Pond Study: Fish and Insects

It was a pond study day for our family and we enjoyed spending some time at Grandpa’s house poking around in his pond. His pond is very low at the moment so it was easy to scoop up a tub of fish to observe.

We have been using a new critter habitat that has made our pond study so much more enjoyable. We also purchased a new net to do the actual collecting of samples and it has made a big difference in our success in catching these little guys as well as snails and aquatic insects.

My son loves to incorporate humor into his nature journal entries and since I consider the entries to be his own, I don’t say much about it. Actually, in creating the humorous illustration he is demonstrating his understanding of the web of life that exists in a pond ecosystem. How can I argue with that?

He did observe some dragonflies at the pond and he made this journal entry for his nature notebook.
Later on that day at our home, we found this damselfly in the backyard. We think it is a California Spreadwing but there appeared to be something wrong with this particular insect. I don’t know if it was old or if it had some other issue but it never did fly away.

If you haven’t had a chance before, read over the section in the Handbook of Nature Study on fish. The study of any fish can be done using the observation suggestions on pages 147 and 148.

“Almost any of the fishes found in a brook or pond may be kept in an aquarium for a few days of observation in the schoolroom. A large water pail or a bucket does very well if there is no glass aquarium. ”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 145

We will be taking a few more trips to the pond before the season is over. Boys and ponds….water and mud….just can’t beat the combination.

Here is the book we like to take along with us when we go to the pond. It has a little bit of everything discussed and so far it has been easy to identify the things we find at our pond. It is also a small pocket sized book that easily fits into your pocket or backpack.

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Barb — 6 Comments

Cotton Study: Our Family Outdoor Hour Challenge

The boys were not too excited about this study when we started but I persevered. We decided that we would read the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study together and then see what we find interesting about cotton plants. The whole discussion about cotton led to a thorough discussion about the role of cotton and slavery which I loved because it shows how nature study can be so much more than just nature study.

We can draw in art, history, geography, culture, and traditions.

We checked our clothing that we had on and of course we all had something made of cotton. My pants were a cotton/linen blend and my shirt was 100% cotton. The boys each had on cotton blend shorts and 100% cotton t-shirts. A little awareness goes a long way and we were soon finding lots of things made of cotton around the house. 🙂

Looking at cotton with a magnifying lens was interesting and they quickly sketched the view on their notebook page for their nature journal.

We would love to grow cotton here just for fun but I don’t think we have the right kind of climate. We remembered that we had seen some cotton plants when we visited Atlanta, GA at the living history museum….now that was some hot weather when we were there! Too humid for us West Coasters.

Our actual outdoor time was spent in the garden again. Here are some things we found interesting.

Green beans with their pretty purple blossoms.

Tomato blossoms still coming on the plants.

Garlic chives we need to trim….the flowers are pretty though.

Bells of Ireland in Amanda’s box. This is a new plant for our garden and it really is pretty.

So even though our inside preparation work started off a little slow, we really did enjoy learning about cotton and cotton plants. Our outdoor time was the highlight of the day and having a small garden to tend and nurture is a blessing and a refuge to us all.
Crop Plants Notebook Pages – Companion to the Crop Plants Challenges

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Barb — 5 Comments

Summer Hummingbird Surprise

This guy decided to sit and let us get a very good look at him the other day. My son was quick with the camera and snapped this photo for me.

We have had an amazing amount of hummingbirds in our yard this year and the feeders are humming all day long. They also love the butterfly bush, the trumpet vine and the crepe myrtle.

The garden is starting to look like mid-summer and not at its prime but the birds, bees, and butterflies are still daily visitors.

The daily rhythm is changing up a bit and soon the harvesting will be complete. Already the evening comes quickly and the nights seem a little crisper. There isn’t much that we can do to delay the progress towards autumn so I will try to enjoy the changes as they come.

Take some time this week to note your neighborhood and talk a little with your children about what they see out the window or as you take a short nature walk.

I have started a list of things that I would like to do this autumn for nature study and I will share it with you all very soon.

For dinner today, it will be another round of fresh bruschetta from the garden….tomatoes and basil are still coming daily. Filling the birdbaths and watering the roses will be done in the cooler evening hours. Tomorrow we are hoping to harvest the plums.

Enjoy the tastes of summer….a feast for the eyes and a feast for the belly.

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Barb — 7 Comments

Taking Time to Notice

“There’s a poem that says that the person who can best appreciate God is the one who is familiar with the natural world He made.”

Charlotte Mason volume 1, page 61

Besides reading scripture, the natural world gives us many opportunities to see God’s qualities in what he has made for us. There is much to learn when we spend time, large amounts of time, with our eyes wide open to the world around us. Not just this earthly realm but the heavens themselves are there as a testament to His organization and His faithfulness.

My youngest son has grown up living the “nature study” sort of life and at thirteen he is capable of amazing even me with his awareness of the creation around us. I hope that by sharing our experiences with nature that it helps other families to begin to see the benefits and the joy of learning about the world outdoors.

Mr. B spotted many things that I would have missed when we were camping on the Oregon Coast last June. He found snails, hermit crabs, mussels, water snails, and banana slugs. He pointed out the biggest slug I have ever seen and we enjoyed watching him slowing making his way across the trail in front of us. I would have either missed it or avoided it if he hadn’t been along with me on the hike.

I gave him the assignment to find three different kinds of mushrooms or fungus on this trip to identify and draw. He easily found a dozen different kinds and we were able to identify the ones he found most interesting. This meant careful observation at ground level many times….taking packs off and kneeling over to look at the undersides of the mushrooms.

I spend much of my time looking at the colorful beauty in nature, finding a refreshing sense of just what kind of Creator would make such a feast for the eyes. My son has taught me that he finds God’s hand in the sometimes ugly and not so attractive aspects of nature…making them a beauty in my eyes by looking at them from his point of view. The useful and wise ways of God are seen in how he provides an organized web of life around us if we are only observant enough to take the time to truly see it.

Posted on August 10, 2009 by Barb — 5 Comments

Garden Thoughts and Starting a New School Year

This weekend I kept seeing the 5 and 8 patterns in flower petals in my garden. I would be watering a garden box and there it would be…5 or 8. I know it is because I am hypersensitive after refreshing my memory about Fibonacci last week during our corn study.

Pink Cosmos

Zucchini blossom with its bold orange color.

I also had a renewed appreciation for the patterns of growth in flowers. The beauty of the way the seeds are arranged fascinates me.

My mammoth sunflower is turning itself inside out. The birds are loving it!

We start a new school year today and I will still be in my garden in the afternoon but it will not be the long days outside like I have been. Soon the season will change and it will be autumn. Autumn is not my favorite season but it does have its delights. Already I can feel the days getting shorter and spending time outdoors will bring to our attention other changes as well.

For now, we will enjoy the harvesting of our vegetables and the cycle of planting a new fall/winter garden. I will be saving some seeds for next year and I already have plans for a new section of garden to be completed by next spring. One of my summer reading projects was this book: The Backyard Homestead. I was inspired to try a few new things in our smallish backyard. I will keep you posted as we progress in a few small projects.

The Outdoor Hour Challenges for crop plants will continue for a few more weeks and then I am not sure what direction we will take. My boys are asking for another pond study so maybe we will take the Outdoor Hour Challenges in that direction as we head into autumn.

Posted on August 7, 2009 by Barb — 1 Comment

Outdoor Hour Challenge- Crop Plants: Cotton

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Crop Plants #4
Cotton

Inside Preparation Work
1. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 604-608. The lesson on the cotton plant in the HNS is loaded with information about a plant that many of us have never grown or seen in person. Make sure to view the photo on page 606 and the diagram on page 607 with your children. See the links at the bottom of this challenge for websites that sell cotton bolls and cotton seeds if you wish to go more in depth with this challenge and study of cotton.

Now we are working totally out of my area of expertise. I have never grown cotton or seen it growing so we will be learning together. 🙂
Here is a Flickr photoset that you might be interested in viewing:
Homegrown Cotton

2. For this challenge it may be interesting to go through your closets and drawers and find clothing items that are made of 100% cotton. Bed linens are sometimes made of 100% cotton as well. Be creative.

Outdoor Time
3. As a family, spend 10-15 minutes outdoors. This would be a great time to check up on any crop plants that you have been growing in the garden. If you don’t have any crop plants growing, spend your time observing your own backyard and seeking a subject that interests your children. Perhaps you could bring along your magnifying glass and inspect leaves or flowers or insects. Enjoy this time together and remember that the most important part of any Outdoor Hour Challenge is the time spent outdoors as a family.

Follow-Up Activity
4. Allow time for discussion and a nature journal entry after your outdoor time. Follow up any interest in subjects you observed during your outdoor time either in the Handbook of Nature Study or in a field guide. You could also check past Outdoor Hour Challenge topics to see if we have studied your subject in the past.

5. One idea for cotton observation and then a nature journal is to use cotton balls or cotton fabric and view them with a magnifying lens. You can compare both the cotton ball and the cotton fabric and then sketch your observations in a nature journal entry. (If you purchased the Crop Plants notebook pages, there is a place on the cotton page to record your sketches.)

For future reference:
Here is a link to a website where you can purchase cotton bolls for observation.
http://cottonclouds.com/shopping/product_info.asp?id=542

Here is a link to a website that sells cotton seeds if you would like to grow your own cotton to observe.
http://www.southernexposure.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=COTT

Here is a link to a coloring book about cotton: Wonderful World of Cotton

SAMPLE

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Barb — 6 Comments

Corn Study, Fibonacci, and Our Garden: Our Family Outdoor Hour

We started off our study by reading the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study about corn. There were some great details in there about corn and how it grows and the purpose of each part of the ear of corn.

We followed the outline of the questions on page 603 to go a little more in depth with the ears of corn that we had purchased for this study. We ate the corn after our study and my son described the taste as “sweet and crunchy”.

Here is a little excerpt from my son’s journal page:
“The rows are more orderly near the top and become an irregular mess near the bottom. This is partly due to the lack of space but also because the slight curve of some pushes others over and they push the next and so on. The end has little definable shape but is long in some parts and stops short in other rows. ”

Closely examining the ear of corn was really quite amazing, proving once again how taking a few concentrated minutes to study something commonplace produces a whole new appreciation for its beauty and design. We started wondering if corn follows the idea of a Fibonacci number or sequence and we did a little research.

We are constantly amazed at the design that our loving Creator has put before us if we only take the time to really see and appreciate.

Okay, back to our study. We germinated some corn kernels as part of our weekly nature study and we were all surprised that in a matter of days we had real corn plants growing. I unzipped the bag to allow the stems to poke out and they have continued to grow. The photo above is after five days of germination. I highly recommend this easy experiment as a way to see the process of growth. (The instructions are in the original challenge.)

We also planted some corn in our garden at the beginning of the crop plant challenges a few weeks ago. They are starting to get taller each day. I think we planted too many in our square foot…we shall see.

While we were out in the garden we noticed that our winter squash is finally forming.

We have two plants with about three squashes each so that will be a good crop for a first try.

Another new plant in our flower garden is the gladiola.

I planted shades of purple and they are gorgeous.

The glads are starting and the hydrangeas are fading. They are still very pretty even if their color is not as vivid. I am going to cut a bunch and keep them for dried flower arrangements.
Crop Plants Notebook Pages – Companion to the Crop Plants Challenges

Outdoor Hour Challenge Crop Plants #4 Cotton

Outdoor Hour Challenges for families since 2008!

Outdoor Hour Challenge
Crop Plants #4
Cotton