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Posted on December 4, 2008 by Barb — 3 Comments

What are Flowerless Plants?

“There is something uncanny about plants which have no green parts; indeed, many people find it difficult to think of them as plants. It is, therefore, no wonder that many superstitions cluster about toadstools. In times of old, not only was it believed that toads sat on them, but that fairies danced upon them and used them for umbrellas……But science, in these days, brings revelations concerning these mysterious plants which are far more wonderful than the web which superstition wove about them in days of yore.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 714

As a prelude to tomorrow’s challenge, I wanted to help explain what it is exactly that we will be focusing on during the next few weeks of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. I have a feeling that some of you are not too excited about the focus on non-flowering plants but I think if you understand a little better what you are going to be looking for, your enthusiasm will grow.

Here is some information I have found in researching this topic and it was surprising to me that there are so many things to be on the alert for as far as topics that are covered in the Handbook of Nature Study. Hopefully this list will give your eyes something to search for over the next few weeks during your Outdoor Hour time. There is more to the focus of flowerless plants than just looking for mushrooms.

First of all you have the obvious subject and that is mushrooms or different fungi. Mushrooms are technically a fungi but we can call them mushrooms if that is easier. Puffballs are also in this family.

Fungi are really non-flowering plants that have no green.

Next you can look for ferns. I think everyone knows what a fern looks like but the variety of ferns available in your area will vary. You should look for ferns in shady places. Many of the ferns in our area are turning brown but you will recognize their unique shape when you see them.

Mosses and lichen are another category of flowerless plants. Once you start looking for moss…you will see it growing in many places and it is something that children love to observe and touch. Look on tree trunks or logs, cracks in the sidewalk, along a moist section of concrete, or under ledges.

Molds are also flowerless plants. How about observing the mold on a slice of bread? I found this flowerless plant over a section of ground that has a rotting tree trunk and roots. No very pretty until you get up close and then it is fascinating.

Flowerless plants may be new to your family. Take the challenges one at a time and do the reading in the Handbook of Nature Study and keep your eyes open. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much you learn and your children will become aware of a whole new fascinating world.

Posted on November 26, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

Weather Study Finally! Outdoor Hour Challenge #39 and #40

We were finally able to do a little weather study today and it was actually fun to be outdoors in the light rain.

It wasn’t too cold either so we took a few photos as we walked around the yard. The deck plants are so pretty and colorful and brighten even this rainy day.

The gray sky really brought the colors in the trees and it was interesting to watch the raindrops collect on the plants in the garden. One sweetgum tree has lost all its leaves but the other is still holding on to its bright red and green leaves…at least so far today. On the right of the photo above you can see our Giant Sequoia tree and how its evergreen boughs are still full and beautiful.

My youngest filled out the Seasonal Weather Study sheet and we filed it away in his nature journal to compare with the coming season’s pages.

This was really a great nature study and I think that watching and comparing the weather each season is going to help us notice more about each season.

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Climbing Trees-No Weather to Speak Of

Still no “weather” to report from our house. The windows and doors are still wide open and the sky is clear. We have forecasts of some rain maybe this week so we are going to wait until then to take a weather study.

In the meantime, the boys and their father decided today was the day to climb a tree. We have one really big tree in our yard that is fairly easy to climb because the limbs are close together and there are so many of them. They took a ladder to get started but then climbed up from there.

This was the first time that I have noticed cones on the ground under this tree.

I grabbed the tree identification book and here is what we came up with.

Here is what we used to identify the tree….leaflet and cone.

It looks as if we have a Giant Sequoia in our backyard, right next to our deck.

This is my best attempt to take a complete photo of the tree showing our deck at the bottom. It is a really tall tree.

“The seed cones are 4-7 cm long and mature in 18-20 months, though they typically remain green and closed for up to 20 years; each cone has 30-50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale giving an average of 230 seeds per cone.” and “Young trees start to bear cones at the age of 12 years.”
Wikipedia on the Sequoia

So what started out as tree climbing ended up with identifying our very own Giant Sequoia in our backyard. It was growing here when we moved in 21 years ago and I assume it was planted by the previous owner. It does provide great shade on our deck during the hot summer afternoons and the birds and our backyard squirrel like to use it for protection.

This tree has been hit by lightning once a long time ago in a really big storm. It sounded like something exploded in our backyard during the thunder storm and we went outside to see what it was and we saw a long black line on the trunk of the tree and it was smoking at the base. It was very memorable.

What an afternoon.

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Barb — 5 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #40 Seasonal Weather Study

Last week we read through a large section of the Handbook of Nature Study on water forms and hopefully everyone was able to go outside and observe the weather conditions in your particular area of the world.

We went outside on several days to try to catch some clouds and it just didn’t happen. I am going to save our official entry for last week’s challenge until we can draw some clouds in our journals.

This week we will start a year long, four season weather observation study. This challenge will be to make a record of some sort of your record during the current season….autumn. I have put together a simple weather study notebook page if you want to use it for your records or you can simply record the information in your a nature journal.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #40
Weather Challenge #2
Seasonal Weather Observation-Autumn

1. Read pages 790-791, sections on Thermometer Scales in Use and Distribution of the Temperature and Pressure, in the Handbook of Nature Study. 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

2. Pick a day this week to spend 15-20 minutes outdoors observing the weather and recording the conditions using the My Seasonal Weather 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.

3. To follow up your outdoor time, 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.

4. For your nature journal this week, fill out the My Seasonal Weather 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 791 of the Handbook of Nature Study for a basic record keeping idea.

You may also be interested in purchasing a complete weather lapbook from my daughter over at Hearts and Trees. The lapbook includes: a winter nature journal, kinds of clouds, moon log, weather words, wind scale, weather record, weather forecasting, and space for your own weather poem. All for $2.95.

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

English Walnuts-Yes, Another Tree Study

Today was *another* cloudless day but we were outside looking to see what we could find interesting in the backyard. The walnut tree now that it has just about lost all of its leaves was our subject of the day. First we started looking at the way the woodpeckers have over the years made numerous holes in the trunk and large branches. Be sure to click the photo to get a better look.

As we examined the trunk closer, we noticed the change in the texture of the bark shown in the photo below.

I was interested in what was going on with it and I somewhere in my memory have stored away that my husband had once told me that they graft the English walnut onto the black walnut tree because the black walnut is a native of California so it is a hardy tree, resistant to pests but the English walnut has a thinner shell and easier to open and eat.

We decided to ask him more about it and to look it up on the internet once we got inside from our outdoor break.

Here is what we found:

Did you know that California grows 99% of the United States’ walnuts?
That is an average of 303,000 tons of walnuts every year!
The Romans called the walnut Juglans regia or Jupiter’s royal acorn.
My husband was absolutely correct and the English walnut is grafted onto a black walnut rootstock.

Fascinating! I have never noticed the grafting before in all the twenty plus years we have lived in this same house. If you want to know more about the California(English) walnut here is a link to a simple to read explanation. California Walnut

Here is the pile of leaves under the walnut tree. So many leaves to rake but not many nuts due to the resident squirrel and the Scrub jays.

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Barb — 6 Comments

Seed Dispersal in Autumn

We had a terrific windstorm last Friday night which is why there were so many fires here in California. I stood outside under the moon in the warm wind and just soaking it all in. I invited my family to join me and several came out and enjoyed the time just listening to the trees blowing and the leaves as they skittered across the deck. The wind chime was really serenading us and reminding us that the wind has a whole rhythm to itself. Wind music.

All that wind left our yards littered with leaves, small twigs, big branches, seeds, cones, and needles. The above photo shows just a snapshot of how many seeds came down out of the tulip tree. If you click on the photo you will see how the tree disburses its seeds with the little “helicopter style” winged seeds.

I really should have the boys complete the one small square activity on our front grass right now with all the interesting things to be found. If you look carefully you will even see an acorn that some bird had stored somewhere and it fell out of its hiding spot during the storm. There are no oak trees anywhere near this grass so some creature had to bring it here…probably a woodpecker or a Scrub jay. The boys and I had a discussion about how the various trees in our area disperse their seeds.

You can also see the large cone from the magnolia that has already lost all of its beautiful red seeds. There are probably over a hundred of these cones in our front yard right now.

This is a perfect example of how when you examine something up close it is truly amazing. Look at the texture and the pattern! The magnolia tree is always giving us something to look at: beautiful green, glossy leaves, huge fragrant flowers, cones, red seeds. The bees love this tree when it is in bloom.

I could not help but try to capture a few of the red seeds that are left after the storm. I love the reds of the autumn and this one is a bright, cheery red.

This was a very unplanned nature study but very rewarding. We have not had any “weather” at all here except the wind. There hasn’t been a cloud in the sky to look at or an precipitation except for maybe a bit of dew a few mornings. We are experiencing unusually warm weather in the 70’s right now and very dry.

Posted on November 14, 2008 by Barb — 12 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #39 Weather Challenge #1

This has probably been the hardest challenge for me to put together. In planning, I would start off with one idea and then realize that everyone does not have the same sort of weather at the same time and I would get overwhelmed and put the whole thing aside. I know no matter what I chose for the next two challenges that I will not be able to meet everyone’s needs.

With that in mind, I decided that this week we should all read about weather topics in the Handbook of Nature Study and then apply what we learn during our Outdoor Hour. Next week’s challenge will be the first challenge in a year long weather observation study and hopefully that should be appropriate for everyone no matter where you live or when you complete this challenge.

I hope that you all give this challenge a try and either learn something new or just enjoy your outdoor time observing the weather conditions.

I have departed from my usual format and I am going to include some YouTube videos with this post that you can choose to watch on your own or with your children. Each family can choose whether to watch the videos or not but because I am a highly visual person, I enjoy a short YouTube video to draw attention with my own boys.

How about one that explains what weather really is and what influences it.

Here is another video if you have time and want to share with your kids.
Water Cycle =video and corny song (younger children)

Outdoor Hour Challenge #39
Weather Challenge #1

“The weather is the condition of the atmosphere at the moment, while climate is the sum total of weather conditions over a period of several years.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 780

1. Read pages 808-814 in the Handbook of Nature Study. This section describes in detail water forms found at various times during the year. Make sure to highlight or underline the sections in the text that talk about water forms that your family may experience in your local area.

“Water in its various changing forms, liquid, gas, and solid, is an example of another overworked miracle-so common that we fail to see the miraculous in it.”

2. Spend 15 to 20 minutes outdoors this week with your children in your own yard or on your own street. Make sure to take note of any clouds in the sky and try to put into words what they look like. Use words like fluffy, wispy, thin, dark, high, low, and any other terms you can remember from the links above or from the Handbook of Nature Study.

If your area is experiencing some type of precipitation, try to still go outdoors for a few minutes. Bundle up or put on a hat and rain boots.

See if you can find a puddle or a patch of ice or snow and take your time to observe what you can about it.
Is it windy during your outdoor time?
See if you can figure out which direction the wind is coming from and how strong it is.
Does it move the leaves or the branches on a tree?
Do you see a flag that is rippling in the wind or is it straight out?
If you have a thermometer, you can note the temperature.

3. To follow up your outdoor time, 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 includes numerous specific weather related activities that will help demonstrate weather concepts for your children.

You can pick any of the activities from the pages we read this week in the Handbook of Nature Study.

4. The nature journal this week can be filled with their observations about the weather and drawings of the clouds or precipitation that they encounter during the Outdoor Hour Challenge.

You are welcome to submit any of you blog Outdoor Hour Challenge blog entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

California Buckeye: Outdoor Hour Challenge #38

This week our challenge was to find an elm, hickory, or chestnut tree. In doing research, both in the Handbook of Nature Study and in our field guide, we discovered that a tree that we have an abundance of in our area is actually know as the California buckeye or the California horse chestnut. (Aesculus californica) This tree is more like a tall shrub that grows to between 4 and 12 feet tall.

“The Ohio buckeye is our most common native relative of the horse chestnut. Its leaves have five leaflets instead of seven. The sweet buckeye is also an American species and grows in the Allegheny Mountains.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 649

So we were off to find a buckeye tree to observe this week for our nature study.

My trusty assistant helps gather a fruit to observe and then leave on the ground.

This time of year the buckeye has no leaves so we had to look for the trunk and the fruit of the tree to identify it. In the spring this tree is covered in blossoms and fill the woods with clouds of whiteness. In the summer the trees turn brown and are not quite as lovely.

There is one big difference between a buckeye and a horse chestnut, the seed is highly poisonous so don’t eat it!

Here’s what it says on eNature.com:
“California Indians made flour from the poisonous seeds after leaching out the toxic element with boiling water. The ground, untreated seeds were thrown into pools of water to stupefy fish, which then rose to the surface and were easily caught. Chipmunks and squirrels consume the seeds, but bees are poisoned by the nectar and pollen.”

I really enjoyed this challenge because our whole family learned something about a tree we see in our own neighborhood but we didn’t know much about before this study. I am going to sure to read up on the elm and the hickory to see if I can find some local connections as well.

Posted on November 11, 2008 by Barb — 6 Comments

Nature Study is Not a Drill: How I Learn to Be Flexible

“If nature study is made a drill, its pedagogic value is lost. When it is properly taught, the child is unconscious of mental effort or that he is suffering the act of teaching. As soon as nature study becomes a task, it should be dropped; but how could it ever be a task to see that the sky is blue, or the dandelion golden, or to listen to the oriole in the elm!”
Handbook of Nature Study page 6

I know our family would never keep up our interest in learning about the world around us if it wasn’t something we enjoyed. I do think that it takes just one person to get excited about something and then everyone seems to catch the excitement.

I am sometimes that person but more and more it is the boys who are finding and exploring and drawing my attention to things that they see as they are outside. I have learned to follow their lead.

It is a little uncomfortable to just allow things to happen in nature study. There is always the risk that what interests your children will not be something you are interested in or that you know anything about. I can’t tell you how many times that happens in our family. Gradually I have learned the value in allowing some leeway in the topics we learn more about because I can see the growth in my sons’ love for and connection to the world they live in. I hear their appreciation for the complex system of life that was created for us to enjoy and benefit from.

Here is a real life example:
Most of you know we went to Oregon last month as a family vacation and as a way to learn more about marine biology. I had prepared these wonderful notebooks all about invertebrates that inhabit the tidepools of the Oregon coast. Great plan…or so I thought.

As the trip progressed I realized that the children were more interested in marine mammals than in invertebrates. Had I brought a book on marine mammals? Nope. I started to feel a rise of panic as we hit the third day and I was still fascinated by the sea stars and anemones in the tidepools and they were busy finding sea lion bones, watching sea otters play in the water, and sea lions on the rocks.

We decided to stop and go down into the sea cave along the Oregon coast where the Stellar sea lions winter over. The boys were excited to take the elevator down to this cave that is said to be one of the largest sea caves in the world, twelve stories high.

There were no sea lions in the cave at this time of year but pretty soon they will all be back inside after having time out at sea to bulk up for the winter. It was still a fascinating place and the boys were grateful we were willing to stop and pay the price of admission.

I could have made them go along with the original plan but it became clear that this was their experience on this trip. They had seen sea stars before and anemones were cool but they didn’t do too much to really observe. What they wanted was to watch the playful antics of the sea otters and sea lions and harbor seals.

Switching gears happened and by the time we reached Newport and the Oregon Coast Aquarium, they were primed to actually stop and read the signs and information on the displays for the marine mammals. We had printed out the aquarium guide ahead of time and this helped them to go on their own through the aquarium. This was a first for our family. The boys went on their own and my husband and I enjoyed the aquarium by ourselves.

We met three times during the day and each time they were full of things they wanted to talk about and to actually take us to see. The last hour was spent with the boys being the tour guide through the aquarium showing us their favorite things.

Number one on their list were the sea otters. They could have filled a whole research report with the observations they had made watching the sea otters play and be fed and then groom themselves. It was a big lesson for me. They obviously had spent quite a bit of time at the sea otter tank just watching and joyfully getting to know this wonderful creature.

I hope that you will learn from my experience. Nature study can become totally driven by the teacher and become a chore and a drill or it can be a source of excitement and joy as you explore and learn together.

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Barb — 4 Comments

Sitka Spruce in Oregon: Outdoor Hour Challenge #37

Sitka Spruce

We had our eyes open for a spruce when we were traveling in Oregon and we discovered that the Sitka spruce was in just about every campground that we stayed in this time around.

The cones are interesting and the tree itself is very pretty. If you look closely at this photo, you will see the cones hanging on the branch.

One night we had our tent under a spruce and a storm blew in after we had crawled into our sleeping bags. The trees howled and the rain poured and it was sort of a wild night. In the morning the rain had stopped but we still had the drip, drip of the raindrops from the tree falling on our tent. We at first thought it was still raining until we unzipped the rain fly and realized the sun was peeking out and our “rain” was really just left over drops coming from the spruce.

I guess that’s what happens when you go camping in Oregon during the month of October.

Here are some other photos from that trip that are interesting.

I think this is the perfect mushroom. We saw lots of these when we were hiking and they were something new to me. I think this sparked my interest in “flowerless plants” so that is why they are going to be included for a few weeks in the Outdoor Hour Challenges. The boys and I would like to learn a bit more about mushrooms.

These two are such great travelers. Can I just say now how grateful I am to be able to homeschool them through high school? I think that so many of us get overwhelmed at the idea of homeschooling in the teen years but this is the best part of the whole experience. It is hard, don’t get me wrong. But here we are on a school day in October, standing and taking in the fresh ocean air and the peace of the moment. Right after this they had to find a way to hike down and throw some rocks in the water. There actually was a trail if you looked hard enough. Of course there was some sort of sea cave and that spurred on some more discussion about the power of waves.

This photo shows that not all our time outdoors has to be about nature study. We actually do spend time just throwing the frisbee around the campsite. That is a spruce tree in the background.

Here is something interesting from our trip as well and it tied into our study of trees during this time.

One campground we stayed at in Northern California had a recreated Native American village. This is one of the structures that was a family dwelling and the boys were fascinated by the circular door openings. This area was inhabited by the Yurok tribe and the buildings were all built of local redwoods.

Here is the sweat house in the village. They actually still use this for ceremonial activities.

I am not sure what kind of tree this is but I thought it was just so interesting growing right there out of the cliff along the Pacific Ocean. It was just so nice to look at and enjoy as we took in the horizon.

Okay, enough about trees. This was a great challenge for us and I know I had the advantage of knowing ahead of time that we needed to be looking for spruce trees. Challenge #38 is going to take some ingenuity to find an elm, hickory, or chestnut tree. We are up to the challenge though.

Outdoor Hour Challenges for families since 2008!