Get Ready for Wildflower Season – Outdoor Hour Challenge Ebooks
Are you ready for wildflower season? It’s coming whether you’re ready or not! The Outdoor Hour Challenges will be taking us outdoors from now until the autumn season and it’s so nice to have a library of wildflower nature study ideas at your fingertips for all those wildflowers you may encounter.
I’m especially proud of the three newer wildflower focused ebooks I’ve created in the past few years.
Fireweed
Salsify
Forget-Me-Not
Paintbrush
Common silverweed
Henbit
Cow Parsnip
Columbine
Chicory
Cocklebur
Fireweed
Salsify
Forget-Me-Not
Paintbrush
Common silverweed
Additional Wildflower Challenges
I’ve written Outdoor Hour Challenges for every wildflower listed in the Handbook of Nature Study. You can find them under the “Garden” tab on my website. That’s dozens of wildflowers to choose from!
You can have access to the ebooks in the Ultimate and Journey level memberships.
In addition, there are many other summer related challenges available in the summer ebooks.
“Why do we call a plant a weed? Is a weed a weed wherever it grows? How did this weed plant itself where I find it growing? Of what advantage is this weed?”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 513
When Anna Botsford Comstock uses the term “weed”, she many times means what we would commonly call a “wildflower”. If you look in the Table of Contents in the Handbook of Nature Study, you will see a long list of “weeds” that are subjects of complete lessons in this nature study volume.
From my personal experience, I have this conversation every spring with my husband over whether a dandelion is a weed or a wildflower. He has given me the gift of dandelions in our yard, even though he really wants to weed them out. I love their happy color and have observed many an insect benefiting from our leaving a few dandelions at the edges of our yard. (Read about my “wild side” here: Wild Side #1
and Wild Side #2)
This week click over to read the original challenge from the Garden ebook and then pick a weed to observe, looking carefully for its seeds. This activity can be done periodically as the seeds develop during the summer season. Make it a weed and seed hunt!
We’re continuing to work through the Garden Flower and Plants ebook over the next few weeks. If you own this ebook or have access to it in your Ultimate Naturalist Library, you’ll want to get it out and read the first few pages that outline how the ten week series of garden challenges work together and can be done in any order that makes sense to your family. The ebook has planning pages as you choose, observe, and then learn more about each garden flower you study.
If you would like to purchase a membership so you have all of the challenges at your fingertips and the custom notebooking pages too, click over to read all the details and download a sample: Garden Flower and Plant Challenges.
You may wish to look at the June 2013 Newsletter if you have a membership here on the Handbook of Nature Study.
There’s a lot of great information on wildflowers in this post that I wrote last year. Click over to find helpful hints for your seeds and weeds study:
Summer Nature Study with the Outdoor Hour Challenge
It’s coming soon! Summer!
I have just finished editing and updating all three of the summer themed nature study ebooks. These ebooks contain 31 nature study topics for you to choose from over your summer break. This is the time of year that you may have some time available for getting outdoors with your children to enjoy the summer season without distractions. Click the links below to see the specific topics to choose from in each book. Along with the challenge, there are custom notebooking pages for each topic which will make your life easier if you are interested in keeping a nature journal.
If you’re new to the Outdoor Hour Challenge, you can find all three of the ebooks in the Ultimate Naturalist Library membership. (See below for a discount code to use with your purchase!)
I’ll list the summer themed ebooks below and if you want to click over to see the specific topics covered, you can easily do that by clicking the book title.
For a complete list of summer season nature study topics, you can click the summer tab at the top of the website.
Use the discount code SUMMER5 for $5 off your Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
If you’d like to have access to all of the summer ebooks, you’ll find them in the Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
In addition to the summer books, there are 16 additional nature study ebooks in this membership.
This year we’re going to cover the four series noted in the graphic above: Autumn 2009, Winter Series 2010, Garden Flowers and Plants, and More Nature Study – Summer. Click the graphic to read more about the year’s plan.
“To watch the little plant develop, to study its seed leaves and what becomes of them, to know that they give the plant its first food and to know how a young plant looks and acts, are all items of legitimate interest in the study of the life of a plant…”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 458
It’s spring and a favorite garden related nature study lesson is to be found while germinating seeds. This is an activity that children of all ages can do with help. I remember doing this with my boys when they were preschoolers and they were so proud when their seeds grew and then eventually bloomed. Don’t think this is something too advanced for your family.
Take time to make daily observations! The progress can be a perfect topic for a nature journal page too.
Keep it simple and have fun! Your children will gain so much firsthand knowledge of plants and seeds by completing this Outdoor Hour Challenge. Click the link below to get started!
If you’re a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study, there are printables in the library for making seed comparisons that would be a perfect companion activity to this Outdoor Hour Challenge.
We’re continuing to work through the Garden Flower and Plants ebook over the next few weeks. If you own this ebook or have access to it in your Ultimate Naturalist Library, you’ll want to get it out and read the first few pages that outline how the ten week series of garden challenges work together and can be done in any order that makes sense to your family. The ebook has planning pages as you choose, observe, and then learn more about each garden flower you study.
If you would like to purchase a membership so you have all of the challenges at your fingertips and the custom notebooking pages too, click over to read all the details and download a sample: Garden Flower and Plant Challenges.
Now available in the Ultimate and Journey level memberships:
Garden Notebooking Pages – Set #2
(See the end of this post for more information on how you can become a member.)
Garden Notebooking Pages Set #2: This set of notebooking pages for your nature journal will help you study the following topics: cucumbers, kale, cherries, gourds, and squash.
There are 5 notebooking pages in this set. These pages are a great supplement to the Garden Flowers and Plants ebook that we are currently working through with the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
Note: If you have any subjects you would like me to create nature notebook pages for, please let me know in a comment here on the blog or in an email: harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com
Print a complete list of printables available in the Ultimate and Journey level memberships by clicking the button above.
Use the discount code NATURE5 for $5 off an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership!
April is such an awakening of life and color here in Central Oregon. We’ve experienced an explosion of birds visiting our yard and within view of our back windows. The joy of living at the edge of two habitats grows as you see the variety of birds and animals that appear as the spring warms the earth and the grasses begin to grow.
Here’s my April list of birds seen from our windows, all listed on the chalkboard that hangs in our dining area. I hardly have room to add any more birds! Some are the usual residents but many of the birds we spotted are migrant visitors that stop by or stay through the summer.
I hung my hummingbird feeder up last week and two days later we had our first hummingbird! The nesting boxes are already full of birds that are nesting, including the tree swallows that zip and dive around our yard.
We were particularly surprised to see an eagle land behind our house and then take off chasing a raven. This eagle was huge! It was a thrill to be able to not only see this magnificent bird but to capture some images for my nature journal.
The return of the elk came in April this year as well. We have 7-8 elk that graze behind our house every day early in the morning and sometimes again in the evening. During the day, they hang out among the trees and if they stand still you can’t even see them.
The large snow pack and the heavy rains we received have made the river behind our house rise up higher than we’ve ever observed in the two years we’ve lived here. We can’t freely walk up and down the riverbank because our path is cut off with a channel of water as it meanders around and then back to the main river.
We’ve seen herons, mallards, and otters in these new waterways right up near our back fence.
One More Image
I’m feeling so much stronger now that my hips and muscles are healing from my surgery! We took a more strenuous hike this past week up to Fort Rock in the Oregon Outback. This is a magical place for hiking this time of year. Once at the top, you can see for miles out over the sagebrush and juniper trees. The wind makes a moaning and whistling sound up against the volcanic rocks if you climb up and sit near the rim of the crater. We heard birds like ravens and hawks calling out from their perches high up on the rocks, echoing and bouncing from rim to rim. The wild currants are just getting ready to blossom and the sagebrush isn’t far behind in leafing out. What a great afternoon!
There are many, many nature journal ideas included in the archives of the Handbook of Nature Study newsletters. If you have any level of membership, make sure to download the newsletter index to make finding a topic easy.
Did you see the new Wildflower ebook? There are five completely new Outdoor Hour Challenges in this ebook for you to enjoy with your family. Please click over and check it out and don’t miss the $5 off discount code!
This is the perfect time of year to start a bird nature study unit. If you’re just finishing up your science curriculum and you have a few extra days to fill in with some fun nature study, take a look at the Learning About Birds ebook for some ideas and suggestions for making the most of the springtime bird population in your local area.
Don’t forget to look for any insects on your flowers collecting pollen.
We’re continuing to work through the Garden Flower and Plants ebook over the next few weeks. If you own this ebook or have access to it in your Ultimate Naturalist Library, you’ll want to get it out and read the first few pages that outline how the ten week series of garden challenges work together and can be done in any order that makes sense to your family. The ebook has planning pages as you choose, observe, and then learn more about each garden flower you study.
If you would like to purchase a membership so you have all of the challenges at your fingertips and the custom notebooking pages too, click over to read all the details and download a sample: Garden Flower and Plant Challenges.
It may seem like cheating because where I live in Oregon it’s barely thawing out from our record breaking snow storm earlier in March but, I’m going to share some signs of spring from my first day of spring in California. I was staying at my parents’ house in Northern California where it is most definitely spring!
There were early spring bulbs blooming like daffodils and hyacinths.
We took a long hike where we observed quite a few wildflowers and flowering shrubs.
As well as seeing signs of spring with our eyes, we heard many sounds that made us know that spring was well on the way. We heard robins, towhees, frogs, coyotes, and the buzzing of bees. Those sounds always make me think of spring in California.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting spring and now I can look forward to experiencing it again here in Oregon in a few weeks (hopefully).
We had so much snow a few weeks ago that I didn’t think we would see the ground again for a long time. But, during the last week or so the rains have come with warmer temperatures and melted the large mounds of snow. Now that the ground is exposed, we’re beginning to see signs of spring like sprouts of green grass, green leaves of the lilies and other wildflowers poking up through the grass, and the increase in birds that stop by the water and in the grass. What a welcome sight!
We had a chance to go out between rain showers to look at our willow for signs of spring. We had to find the willow with our string attached and it took a bit of navigating to get to it with the standing water from the melted snow and rain. We got fairly close to the willow and it looks slightly greener on the limbs and the buds are getting larger. We also observed some red-winged blackbirds in the area, both by hearing their song and seeing them sitting the willows.
We’ll soon be seeing new leaves appear on the willows but not quite yet.
This photo was taken a week after the ones in the beginning of this entry. Look how high the river has come up since then!
The most exciting thing we spotted during our walk was a Belding’s ground squirrel racing from his hole to eat under our birdfeeder. We stopped and watched him with his curiously short tail and chubby body. He evidently ate well all holed up in his den this past season.
Now all we need is for the return of the elk and it will really feel like springtime.
If you’d like to join me in a spring willow study, you can click over to see the original challenge. It’s not too late to get started with a yearlong study of willows!
Don’t panic! I know that many of us have a fear of drawing and the idea of teaching our children to draw makes us anxious! Please give this Outdoor Hour Challenge a try alongside your children. There are plenty of suggestions and a link to a fabulous website of tutorials in the original challenge to make this week’s nature study a complete success.
Keep it simple and if you have any trouble, be patient with yourself. Remember the flower parts that we learned about in the second challenge in this series? Keep those in mind as you look at your flower and try to create a simple sketch in your nature journal.
If you’d like to look for a couple of books at your library, here are two that I really enjoy and they’re appropriate for children of all ages.
I wrote a blog entry a few years ago with a few simple tips to encourage moms who don’t think they can draw. I hope you’ll find some inspiration here if you’re one of those moms:
We’re continuing to work through the Garden Flower and Plants ebook over the next few weeks. If you own this ebook or have access to it in your Ultimate Naturalist Library, you’ll want to get it out and read the first few pages. It outlines how the ten week series of garden challenges work together and can be done in any order that makes sense to your family. The ebook has planning pages as you choose, observe, and then learn more about each garden flower you study.
