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Posted on May 4, 2008 by Barb — 8 Comments

Wildflower Walk-Purple Chinese Houses, White Globe Lily, Indian Pink, and More

Trail with poppies-it is a steep hike but very rewarding

It was a family hike day down our near-by trail. We just discovered this trail over the winter and have now been hiking it for the last few months regularly. We are finding that every time we venture down it, we find something new and exciting waiting for us.

This afternoon we found lots of new wildflowers blooming, some familiar and some new to us. We also saw at least three different kinds of butterflies and heard a new bird but never discovered who it was…..shy bird with a lovely call. We need to come back with binoculars and spend some time quietly sitting and waiting with a field guide.

“Everyone should have the privilege of enjoying the natural beauty of the countryside. Such enjoyment is impossible if a relatively small number of people insist on picking and destroying native plants for their own selfish interests.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 460-461

Here are some of the beauties we saw on this particular hike.

Some kind of pea flowering on a vine.

California Indian Pink….showy color and you couldn’t miss it!

Purple Chinese Houses
These are some of my favorite wildflowers. Not only are they purple but they are really big. On this trail they line both sides as you walk the upper part.

White Globe Lily or as we call them Fairy Lanterns. They are also know as Snowdrops, Indian Bells and Satin Bells. Whatever you call them, so pretty.

This is a new flower to us. I love the little purple dot on each petal and the yellow center. The interesting stems and leaves make this unusual shape. They were all over the trail…in the center as well as the edge. I have not identified this wildflower yet….any ideas?

This was so sweet smelling as we hiked along…deer bush, California lilac, or wild lilac. The bees loved it.

This was a wonderful way to spend our Outdoor Hour this weekend. So many families have thanked me for starting the Outdoor Hour Challenges but the reality is that this whole process has blessed me more than you can imagine. I have renewed zeal for finding ways of weaving nature study into our life too. It has been a mutually beneficial experience. 🙂 So thank you to all you families who are participating.

Posted on May 4, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Our Green Hour #11 Year-Long Tree Study

For this challenge we were to choose a tree to study for a year, observing it in each season to notice the changes. My son and I used the Tree Study sheet to prompt our observations but in the Handbook of Nature Study on page 625 there is a section on “Spring Work” to use with your own tree.

My son has suddenly taken an interest in basketball and is bouncing a ball in every spare moment. I tore him away yesterday afternoon to have him to pick his tree and do a quick observation. He picked one of the sweet gum trees that we have growing just off our back deck. We have four of these trees planted as a shade break for the hot summer afternoons. They are perfect for shading us for the late summer sun and then they loose all their leaves in the winter and allow the sun to hit our house in the winter to make it light and cheery. They also turn the most magnificent colors in the autumn and make the view out our back windows very colorful and enjoyable to look at….I can see them as I wash dishes at the kitchen sink. they are not native to our area but they are very popular as tree plantings in neighborhoods and in yards for shade and their beauty.

So here is a copy of his notebook page for his journal. I am going to slip it into a sheet protector and hopefully the leaf will survive for the year that we have ahead. At least we will have the scan of the page so we can compare on the computer if we need to.

You can print the notebook page here:
Seasonal Tree Study Notebook Page.

Here is a little sampling of photos from his tree taken on May 3, 2008.

(note the bouncing basketball….I don’t always get rapt attention for nature study)

(click this photo and you will see an ant on the bark)

You can join the Outdoor Hour Challenges at any time.

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Barb — 3 Comments

Spider and a Ladybug: Tangled Webs

My son’s keen eyes spotted this drama happening right on our back deck. The spider was spinning this ladybug up as we watched. The spider is gorgeous.

“Perhaps no structure made by a creature lower than man is so exquisitely perfect as the orb web of the spider…..There should be an orb web where the pupils can observe it, preferably with the spider in attendance.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 44

Posted on May 1, 2008December 29, 2021 by Barb — 3 Comments

How to Make a Nature Journal

I thought I would share a quick little nature journal idea that we like to make for an outing or a special roadtrip.

Materials:

4 sheets of paper…any kind will do
hole punch
rubberband
twig

Fold the paper in half.

Punch two holes near the edge of the folded side of the paper.

Put the rubberband around the twig and then down through one of the holes.

Stretch the rubberband on the backside of the paper and up through the other hole.

Put the rubberband around the other end of the twig.

There you have it.

Add decoration to the cover if you wish.

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

Handbook of Nature Study: Benefits of Giving it a Try

Handbook of Nature Study
Benefits of Giving it a Try

The last ten weeks have brought me to a new understanding of the Handbook of Nature Study. Pulling together and organizing the Outdoor Hour Challenges every Friday on my blog has pushed me to really get to know how to use and benefit from this rather large book.

Here are the some benefits so far:
1. I have read the introductory pages of the book about ten times, highlighted and underlined the parts that spoke to me, and found many gems to share with others. These pages teach *me* to help my children better with their nature study.
2. Our family picked a focus area in the book and used that focus area to learn more about garden flowers. There were about ten flowers listed in the book that we have access to and we have used the observation suggestions from the book to help us better know about the flowers we have in our local area. Even when a flower isn’t specifically covered, the garden flower introductory pages helped us learn the basic structure of the flower and so much more.
3. I know now that I won’t find every item we want to study in the book and have gathered a few local field guides to supplement our study.
4. We are regularly working in our nature journals and keeping up with making field guide cards for our focus area.
5. I am no longer trying to fit our nature study to the book but rather the book to our nature study.

Are there things I don’t like about the book? Yes. Do I think that this is the only book we need for nature study? No. Is this book a positive influence on our family? YES!

If you decide to try the book, go through the first few Outdoor Hour Challenges and read the suggested pages to get you started. You don’t need to follow the activities but just reading the assigned pages in the book will give you a better idea of how you can use this book in your family.

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Barb — Leave a comment

Outdoor Hour Challenge #10 Our First Outdoor Dinner/Picnic

We had been trying all week to get outdoors to have a picnic to complete Green Hour Challenge #10 but the weather just did not cooperate. It rained and then even though the sun was out, it was really still too cold to eat outside. I was determined to eat out on the deck this weekend and it could not have worked out better. We spent the whole weekend working in the backyard because the weather was perfectly perfect.

We added a few more plants to the new butterfly garden, replaced some jasmine plants that didn’t make it through the winter, and I found two new hydrangeas that I wanted in my newly made flowerbed…a pink one and a pretty blue one.

Sunday evening rolled around and we threw some steaks on the barbeque and got out the chair cushions for the deck chairs. All was going well. The kids lit the tiki torches just fine and we went inside to grab a few more things for the table. My youngest son went out on the deck and discovered that one of the torches had completely lit on fire. My husband, who is a firefighter, was so calm and ran over to try to put it out. The older children ran and got the garden hose and put the flames out.

So after the excitement died down, we really did have an enjoyable meal. The sky was beautiful and air was warm. It felt so nice to be outdoors together enjoying a nice dinner.

Here is the sky on this beautiful spring day.

Here are a few more photos from the week’s nature time.

Figs are on the tree already!

Our sunflowers have sprouted it seems like overnight and we are going to have a bumper crop.

We also continued our tree study in the woods but we are going to also pick a tree in our backyard to use for the seasonal Green Hour Challenge, more on that in another entry.

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Barb — 5 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #11 Year-Long Tree Study

If you have been following along with the challenges and you picked a focus way back in challenge number four, you should be just about ready to wrap up your first focus study. Our family has been learning about garden flowers but we are soon going to switch over to wildflowers. (This is going along with my son’s study of Kingdom plantae in biology.)

This is a good time to start a seasonal tree study. You will be picking a tree in your yard or neighborhood that you could “adopt” for a year to observe and record the changes in each season. I encourage everyone to start their year long tree study with the group this week. This part of the challenge should take one week to complete and then in our next challenge we will be starting a group focus study of wildflowers or garden flowers.

Please Note:If your family is enjoying your current focus, you do not need to switch but you can follow your own path and keep us posted.

Observing our tree Fall 2007

Outdoor Hour Challenge #11
Begin a Four Season Tree Study

1. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 622-623. Also read page 625, Spring Work. After reading, turn to the table of contents, to the tree section, and read the list of trees covered in this book. If possible, pick a tree from the list that you have in your yard, on your street, or in a near-by park that you can observe over the course of the next year. My boys and I have been working on a tree study with an oak tree since August 2007. The changes in the tree have given us something to study in each season. If you live in a more exotic location, like some participants who live in Australia, Brazil, or Spain, do your best to compare your tree to a similar tree in the Handbook of Nature Study. Many of the observations can be used to study a variety of trees.

Before heading out for your nature study time, read the introductory section for your focus tree with your children. Make sure to read the observation suggestions for your particular tree and keep these in mind as you go out to make your observations. You will be challenged in each season of the coming year to make an observation for your tree and record any changes. I have prepared a journal page to record your observations. See the end of the blog entry for a link to the journal page.

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to study the tree you are going to observe over the next year. We took photos of our tree to put in our nature journal or you can sketch them right into your journal. Keep in mind the suggestions for observation that you read in the Handbook of Nature Study. If you have younger children, just spend your time observing your tree and helping them to look at it closely.

3. Add anything new to your list of items observed in your focus area (challenge #4) that you are keeping in your nature journal. Make note of any additional research that needs to be done to follow up interest found during your Outdoor Hour.

4. Complete the Seasonal Tree Study journal page with your child. Place the page in your nature notebook to have for comparison in the next seasonal tree challenge.

You can purchase all of the first ten challenges in a convenient ebook along with custom notebook pages.

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Red-Winged Blackbird on a Spring Day

Red-winged blackbird
You can click the link above and read about this bird and also there is a link to hear his song.

If you click this photo to make it larger, you will notice his little beak is open. He was singing up a storm for us.

Here he is landing in the rushes alongside the pond area at the nursery.

We were out at the nursery on Saturday and the meadow and pond area were full of these beautiful blackbirds. I was able to capture this particular bird by creeping as close as I could and then taking lots of photos. 🙂

The Handbook of Nature Study has a whole section on red-winged blackbirds so I was able to learn a lot about them from Anna Comstock’s easy to read narrative. The section starts on page 117.

“The red-winged blackbird lives in the marshes where it builds its nest. However, it comes over to our plowed lands and pastures and helps the farmer by destroying many insects which injure the meadows, crops, and trees.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 119

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

More Reptiles to Identify: Arizona Style

I am still struggling with my disgust of reptiles. Lizards are becoming a bit more palatable but as far as snakes go, I’m still struggling.

Good thing for me that we saw mostly lizards on our trip to Arizona.

On pages 210 to 213 of the Handbook of Nature Study there are many lizards and their descriptions listed. I think on page 213 that number 7 looks surprisingly like the lizards we saw in the photo below.

I did recognize this reptile but only was able to capture his hind end as he scurried under a rock. He was definitely some kind of iguana.

These two photos were taken while we were at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. They had an enclosure where they used to have a bear but the bear has since been retired to a more comfortable place on the grounds. The enclosure did have these interesting, if not rather large, reptiles inhabiting it.

Climbing up the rocks

This guy was also at the museum and was making his way across the riparian habitat.

Now for something pretty to look at. I can only take reptiles for so long and then I need something colorful and beautiful to enjoy.

Close up of the spines

Are you proud of me? We are still working on identifying the reptiles for their nature journals but we are learning a lot along the way.

Posted on April 15, 2008 by Barb — Leave a comment

Our Small Square: Outdoor Hour Challenge #9

We had a chance today to enjoy the spring weather and complete our small square project. My son picked the spot and marked it out for us. Right away he picked the big objects out but I challenged him to list all the small items he found in his square. He used his magnifying glass and we used a small stick to dig around in the dirt a bit and we found a few things to be interested in.

We found quite a few of these clusters from the tree near the square. I suspect they are full of pollen since I noticed when they are on the tree that they send off little “puffs” of something every so often in the breeze.

Then we found some of these little plants that are not grass or dandelions.

A few misc. seeds were underneath the leaves in our square and we have no idea what kind they are.

We both enjoyed digging around in the soil and we did see one small ant.

Here is his journal entry for the day.

We are both interested to identify the tree that the clusters came from so that is our assignment for the next week. It is hard to identify since it currently has very small leaves and doesn’t look anything like the tree we see in the summer.

That was our Outdoor Hour assignment this week, nothing fancy right in our own yard but still very interesting.

Outdoor Hour Challenges for families since 2008!