Family Outdoor Hour Challenge Archives

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Barb — 3 Comments

Apple Time – Delicious Nature Study

The best part of autumn is taking in the fruits of the season. Apples, apples, apples, and more apples. We visited the apple orchard (which has much more than apples this time of the year) and enjoyed some freshly pressed apple cider, apple doughnuts, and picking out quite a few apples to take home.

Yes, I said apple doughnuts. I don’t usually eat doughnuts but this time of year it is a tradition that I like to indulge in with my men. I eat one and they have two or three. Crumb, cinnamon sugar, glaze??? They are all delicious.

In every plant, and bird and insect there is a life-history to be learned more interesting than any story, and I would urge parents to make themselves acquainted with these life-histories by obtaining and studying some of the many admirable books on Natural History which abound in the present day. They will then be enabled to pass on the information in happy talks with their children till they become eager little naturalists, loving the book of nature and seeing in it, not only endless things to admire and wonder at, but evidences, on all sides, of the works of an all-wise and kind Creator, Who has so marvelously fitted each living thing to fill its appointed place in creation and fulfill the duties assigned to it as a part of a great harmonious whole.
Parent’s Review Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 578-584

How much more do we enjoy our apples knowing their life history from twigs and buds in the winter, to leaves and blossoms in the spring, and then fulling enjoying the taste that arrives in a neat little package in the autumn.

It is a wonderful story for children to learn and appreciate.

Applesauce was next on the apple menu…homemade from apples we gleaned from a friend’s orchard. Now we have some jars to enjoy over the next few weeks. Yum!

There are several apple related studies here on the Handbook of Nature Study:
Apple Trees
Spring Apple Blossom
Apples

I am submitting this entry to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival and if you have any entries you would like to submit, you can send them to this email address: charlottemasonblogs@gmail.com. The official blog carnival site is not working so you will need to send them directly to this email.

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Barb — 5 Comments

Queen Anne’s Lace in Autumn

We live in an area where Queen Anne’s Lace is abundant and it is a constant part of the scenery all summer long. It lines the roads and fills the empty fields. I am always aware of it now as we hike and spend time outdoors. It makes me think about Anna Botsford Comstock’s words:

“The object of this lesson should be to show the pupils how this weed survives the winter and how it is able to grow where it is not wanted. The weed is very common along most country roadsides, and in many pastures and meadows. It blossoms very late in the autumn, and is available for lessons often as late as November.” Handbook of Nature Study

This year however our family noticed a difference in our summer time Queen Anne’s Lace. Instead of the really tall towering plants with loads of blossoms, we only had short plants which were sparsely covered with flower heads. Our growing season has been very unusual with hotter and drier conditions than the last few years. We are reasoning that that is the cause of the smaller plants. It will be interesting to see the crop that sprouts next year and then make some more comparisons.

Some more Autumn weeds to enjoy.

This is the joy of a year-long nature study of any subject, getting your eyes to see the changes not only from season to season but from year to year.

You may wish to read my Autumn Queen Anne’s Lace entry from 2010 where we looked very carefully at the seeds of this plant. You can complete your own study using this year’s Queen Anne’s Lace challenge along with a free printable notebook page.

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Barb — 2 Comments

Up-Close Insect Observations and a Relaxed Form of Nature Study

This past month saw a return of the Outdoor Hour Challenge to a more topical approach as opposed to a seasonal approach. For our family, it breathed new life into our time outdoors and although we had a focus we were much more open to letting things just happen.

As we gardened, sat outside for our dinners, and traveled to various local locations, the insect topics came to us and we worked on paying close attention to the opportunities. This truly is the kind of nature study that interweaves itself into your everyday life, the kind you can do just about every day.

We were trimming lavender when we noticed this foamy white globs on many of the plants. We knew right away that it was some sort of insect that was creating these globs but we were not sure which insect. When we were back inside, I Googled “white foam on lavender” and right away we could easily see this was a common search. There were many resources that all pointed to the Spittlebug.

After doing some reading online, we found that it is many times found on rosemary plants too so we went out to look. Yes! There it was on our rosemary plants.

They are related to aphids.
They feed by extracting plant sap.
Nymphs cover themselves with a frothy mass that provides protection from predators.
There can be more than one nymph in a glob.
Oh, and the “spittle” is not spittle at all and actually comes from the other end of the insect. 🙂

Although they can do minimal damage to plants (according to most sources we read online), we decided to take the advice of most and just wash the globs off with the hose. Easy enough.

We have had a huge increase in the number of flying insects in the front garden. The sage, the butterfly bushes, and the lavender are all still in bloom and each day there are hundreds of flying creatures that come to enjoy the flowery goodness. The fiery skipper above is the most common butterfly we have in our garden at this time of year. Isn’t it amazing to see all the parts up close? Can you see the probiscus?

The bees are thick and it makes me realize how easy it is to provide a healthy bee habitat. Plant bee friendly plants and provide even the smallest amount of water and they find you. We had a visitor the other day ask if we were afraid of bee stings and I honestly answered that even though we are in close contact with the bees, they avoid us more than we avoid them.

The flying insect we do have trouble with is the yellow jacket. We had to put up a trap for them because they were stinging my son…..who somehow seems to attract them. Every evening when we sit outside to eat our dinner, one or two of the pesky little insects come to buzz around us and our plates of food. They are very persistent this year for some reason. I think this is the fourth time we have had to rebait our yellow jacket trap. This style has been very successful for us and it is very economical to use since you just buy little packets to bait the trap after it gets full. (You can buy them on Amazon: Rescue WHYTR-BB8 Wasp Hornet Yellow Jacket Trap Reusable.)

I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between native plants, non-native plants, and insects since reading a book on this topic. Bringing Nature Home is another one of the books I received from Timber Press to review and share with you in a post. This book goes more deeply into how introducing non-native plants into our habitats creates an environment that can make life harder for native insects and plants.

It is far more in-depth than I could grasp on the first time through reading it but it has given me lots to think about. It is a book that makes me wish I was staring over with choosing plants for our whole yard but since I can’t do that, I can look forward and make better choices in the future.

If you are interested in reading and learning about how plants and insects (and other creatures), both native and non-native, thrive or die because of choices we humans make….this is the book for you. I am going to read it through again once I have some time to think and meditate on my responsibility as a garden owner.

We are still experiencing temperatures far above normal and the abundance of sunshine has drawn us out into the garden just about every day this week. We did lots of pruning and composting but we are still delaying our actual autumn garden clean-up until we see a change in the weather. The birds and insects and I suspect a skunk and raccoon are still frequenting our garden and enjoying the food source.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Barb — 1 Comment

Family Insect Grid Nature Study

“The teacher of nature study, like the teacher of any subject, will deny himself much if he does not go to the literature of the subject for help in his work. But there is an especial danger in such help on this subject. So soon as one takes to the book instead of to nature for questions that nature could easily answer, he loses the spirit of the work. One must be careful, therefore, to ask many questions of things themselves under the open sky, and to read with patience in nature’s book.”
The Study of Nature by Samuel C. Schmucker 1908

Using the Handbook of Nature Study monthly grid study activities helps us to “read with patience in nature’s book”.
Almost every single task gets us outside with a little bit of focus but yet it is open ended. All ages can participate.

We never feel inclined to complete the whole grid at once but we read the tasks ahead of time just in case while we are going about our regular daily business we see something that relates to the grid study.
I also love that it makes a quick and easy start to a nature journal page where we can record some of our observations.

I printed our Insect Study Grids out in black and white, adding watercolor to jazz it up a bit.

So have you been able to use the grid to help your study of insects this month? I encourage you to give it a try and enjoy this relaxed form of nature study.

Happy insect hunting!

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Barb — 1 Comment

Ant Nature Study- Right in Our Own Backyard

I finally remembered where I had seen lots of ants….on our backyard trumpet vines. This morning I had a chance to go out with Mr. A and take a closer look armed with our cameras and a desire to learn more.

After watching the ants for a few minutes, I realized they were not the only insect enjoying this colorful vine. The honeybees were buzzing right at ear level and even though I knew they were not interested much in me, I felt the need to keep getting out of their way. They were very active and in the photo above you can see there would be multiple bees in one flower. This one had four!

After coming back inside, we did some research online to reveal why the ants are on the trumpet vine. There seems to be two lines of thinking:
1. The ants are farming aphids that also live on the trumpet vine.
2. The ants are actually partaking of the nectar found in the trumpet vine blossom.

This led to more outdoor time trying to discover which it was in our case.They definitely were interested in the flowers so I think our ants were after the nectar of the flowers.

According to the USDA, the trumpet vine is a habitat to the hummingbird, the butterfly, and the ant. I thought it was interesting that the USDA also considers the trumpet vine to be an “invasive weed”. We have had trouble with it sending out its sucker roots and coming up in the lawn but we just keep mowing them down.

Of course, Kona needed a little attention when we were out looking for ants. Smile Kona!

We ended up walking around the garden and ticking off a few of our insect grid tasks…and finding two surprising insects which I will save for my grid study entry next week. I love the way we start off looking for something as simple as an ant, find ourselves asking a question that we answer with more research, investigate some more about a plant we have in our backyard, and end up really enjoy our time together. Although we had a focus in mind when we went outside, the nature study part was very relaxed and natural.

Right in our own backyard.

I am going to record the insects we saw on my insect list from the monthly newsletter, make a nature journal entry for the trumpet vine since we did all the research, and mark off several of the squares on our insect grid.

Hope you are enjoying your monthly focus on insects this month and don’t forget to send in your blog entries for the carnival.

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Barb — 5 Comments

Garden Flowers – Aster Nature Study

I don’t know about you but ever since we really learned about Fibonacci numbers in nature we have been on the lookout for the patterns and swirls. They seem to be everywhere once your eyes learn to focus on this interesting design in creation. The More Nature Study Book #4 Summer Sizzle challenge for garden flowers shares lots of ideas for getting to know about the Fibonacci sequence and the aster family.

Our Garden Flowers Study using the Handbook of Nature Study led us to discover some different kinds of asters that we have right in our own yard. The clue is the shape and arrangement of the flower petals.

The challenge was actually to study White daisies, Black-eyed Susans, and Asters. We went beyond and tried to find all the flowers in the aster family that we have in our garden. We found quite a few.

There are the dahlias. This surprised me that it was in the aster family. My son grows dahlias in his garden box for me and this year they are all shades of pink. I would like to add a few more colors next year.

We do have dahlias growing in pots on the back deck. We planted these from seeds that we purchased from Rene’s Garden. The package calls them Watercolor Silksand they live up to their name.

I bring them in and let them fully open up inside on the kitchen table.

We have lots of Echinacea in our cutting garden. We looked this flower up and it is in the aster family! Can you count the petals?

We were not sure about the Bee Balm so we looked it up on Wikipedia…no, it is not in the aster family. Knowing what makes an aster an aster, we should have known better. Sometimes it adds to the learning experience to NOT find what you are looking for because it makes you stop and take note of the different attributes of a flower like petal arrangement and the way the flower grows.

The nasturtium is also not a member of the aster family. I would love to have a whole bed of nasturtiums. I settled for four scrawny plants this year. There is a study in the Handbook of Nature Study for the nasturtium and I think our family will be following up this aster study with that one in the near future…just for fun and to record this flower in our nature journals.

Other Miscellaneous Garden Adventures from the Past Month

We have lots of Cabbage White butterflies in our garden everyday. I really love this link: Cabbage White. I learned so much by taking the time to look up this butterfly even though it was technically garden flower week. I love it when nature study subjects come to us and we slow down enough to learn a few facts. This is what makes our nature study so rich and satisfying. I think it is such a joy to know about the common everyday things in my garden. There is so much to learn.

We visited a beautiful rose garden when we were on our Oregon trip last month. Shores Acres has a garden that is so magical that you don’t know where to look and you are afraid you are going to miss something. The rose above is my absolute new favorite…it is called Hot Cocoa. It had a slight chocolate fragrance and the color was reminiscent of cocoa.

A rare sighting of me on the blog but I want you to know how much I enjoyed this rose garden. My son obliged me by taking a few photos of me as we wandered around and tried to find our favorites.

My other son decided that the bench was just too inviting and he rested awhile in the rose garden…what a great way to spend a few minutes while you wait for your mom who decided she wanted to read very sign.

So have you completed your garden flower study for the summer yet using the Handbook of Nature Study? I would love to see your garden entries in the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival…you have until the end of the month to post your entry and send in your links.

Jami’s Tuesday Garden Party meme is open from Tuesday to Thursday so there is still time for you to jump in and participate!

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Barb — 7 Comments

Southern Oregon Beaches – Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand

Our recent trip to Oregon let us sample the different kinds of beaches there are along this section of the Pacific Coast. The coast of Southern Oregon has become our summer getaway of choice. We enjoy the break from the hot temperatures at home and we cooled off with the misty foggy days of the Oregon summer.

Would you like to see some of the beaches we visited along with some of the treasures we found to observe and record in our nature journals?

Let’s start off with the most southerly location we visited, a little gem of a beach with lots and lots of agates and pebbles, McVay Rock. This has become one of my favorite rock beaches and it has tidepools too! The boys enjoyed searching for the most colorful or interesting rocks. This was a great location to start our Outdoor Hour Challenge on Rocks. Although we didn’t examine any granite, we took advantage of the time to closely examine some other rocks.

On the other side of Brookings, Oregon we spent some time exploring Whaleshead Beach. The sun was out and we walked the sand, climbed over rocks, and watched the sea birds flying.

There were colorful flowers and grasses growing along the rocky cliffs. It hardly seems possible that this dudleya can grow right on the rocks but it does.

This is a close-up of another beach we visited at the Pistol River in Oregon. It was early morning and we had the beach to ourselves. We had to walk over sand dunes and then over a flat area to get to the shore. There were lots and lots of empty shells…the birds must feast here when the time is right.

Here is a view down the beach with the shorebirds in the distance poking their beaks in for a morning meal. We have friends that come here to go clamming but we were just on a refreshing beach walk as we traveled up the coast.

Here is another beach we camped at on our trip, Bullards Beach near Bandon, Oregon. This image is in the evening and if you look closely you can see horses in the distance and a family having a bonfire up sheltered in the pile of driftwood.

Here is another section of the beach early in the morning. Look at all that driftwood!

This is the lighthouse at Bullards Beach and you can see the sandy dunes and grasses that border the actual shore. Behind the lighthouse is the Pistol River outlet which is where all the driftwood comes from during certain parts of the year.

Farther up the coast, we visited Cape Arago and Simpson Reef. It was a wet day but we braved the rain to observe the sea life down on the rocky islands. I had my binoculars and we were able to see sea lions resting on the rocks and in the water.

Rocks and shells are rather difficult to draw in my nature journal. It is an exercise in slowing down and really looking at the object before you put your pencil or pen to the page.

We had a great time looking for rocks on this trip. Not much granite to look at but we did see many things to capture our interest and to look up in our field guides.

Just looking at these photos makes me want to turn around and go back to Oregon.

You can find other rock related challenges here on the Handbook of Nature Study blog.
Quartz Study
Sand and Soil
Salt Study

If you are interested in more of our Oregon Coast adventures, here are some links.

Oregon Coast Hiking

Oregon Coast Tidepools

Oregon Coast Trail

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Posted on August 2, 2012 by Barb — 6 Comments

Family Monarch Study – How To Conduct a Nature Study Follow-Up

In any blackboard reading lesson, and, so far as possible, in individual written work by the children, tell —

First. What I did.

Second. What I saw.

Third. What I thought.

If this order is habitually followed, the children are more apt to think for themselves, and to base their conclusions on what they have seen. If told in the first person, as far as possible, class reproduction is apt to be more thoughtful and the pupil’s work more individual.

Nature Study and the Child by Charles Scott, 1900

What We Did:
We sat in the garden on several occasions to try to spy out some butterflies as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge for summer butterflies. Mom had her camera and was ready to snap some images if a beauty came along. We mostly saw bees of various kinds and the occasional dragonfly.

Fiery Skipper from 2009 – I forgot to plant my cosmos this year…just realized.

What We Saw:
Western Tiger Swallowtail (We studied this butterfly during the summer of 2011.)
Cabbage White
Fiery Skipper (We identified this way back in 2007.)

Photo from a few weeks ago showing the damaged wing.

What We Thought:
We wondered why we never see the caterpillars in our yard so we investigated the host plant for the Western Tiger Swallowtail. Turns out we have no host plants so that solves that mystery. The host plants are: willow, cottonwood, and chokecherry. (You can use this link to learn about host plants: Create a Butterfly Garden.)

We also noticed that quite a few of the butterflies that come to our yard have tattered wings. We did a little research and found that butterflies can still fly even with up to 70% of their wings missing. It is really a blessing that they are capable of flying even after a bird has taken a bite out of their wings. (See this webpage.) Did you know that some people actually repair a butterfly’s broken wings? Never knew that.

I forgot to mention here on the blog that my milkweed that I had been nurturing along for a few years in a pot on my deck was totally and completely destroyed by the roofers that came to roof our house back in June. They somehow managed to dump it to the ground and it was just smashed into a million pieces, beyond saving. I shed a few tears and promised myself that I would try again. Reminds me I need to order some more seeds and buy a new pot. I am determined to start a monarch habitat in my yard.

We didn’t see any monarchs this week but we did last month.

So to wrap up this post, I want to encourage you to try the simple process that Charles Scott outlined in the quote at the top of this post. It is an easy way to structure a nature journal entry….even young children could give a few words in response to the prompts.

First. What I did.

Second. What I saw.

Third. What I thought.

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Barb — 1 Comment

Monsoon Moisture – Our Summer Weather Study

I captured this image of the clouds at sunset last night coming in off the lake. Gorgeous!

Summer in our part of Northern California is HOT and DRY!

But, occasionally we get the weather phenomenon called “monsoon moisture” which really means that the storms come from the Gulf of California and are tropical in nature, reaching up into the mountains of Northern California with moisture and thunderstorms. (That is my very non-technical explanation of monsoon moisture.) We are going to be using this topic as the advanced study portion of the Summer Weather Challenge.

Monsoon Moisture in the eastern Sierra Nevada at Mono Lake 2006

When this happens, we see quite an interesting buffet of weather activity:
1. Scattered afternoon thunderstorms
2. Down pours of rain
3. Gusty high winds
4. Beautiful clouds (especially at sunset)
5. Increased fire danger because of the chance of dry lightning (no rain)

After an monsoon weather event, the air is sticky with warm moist air. The plants and trees are refreshed, the dry leaves swept away, and the air just smells so nice and fresh.

Monsoon Moisture – Bodie State Park, Eastern Sierra Nevada 2006. We got very wet in the rainstorm that came shortly after taking this photo!

We had such an even last night which will give us an account to share as part of the Summer Weather Challenge in the More Nature Study series. It was really hot at bedtime so we decided to sleep out on the back deck under the stars. It started off fairly innocently with a few wisps of clouds slowly moving across the sky blocking out the stars. Then the wind started to gust and the first flashes of lightning came quickly one after the other. The rumble of the thunder was in the distance. No problem my husband said…he thought it was just going to be a dry lightning event where there is no rain associated with the storm.

Boy, was he wrong!

By 11 PM the lightning, thunder, wind, and rain hit with full force. The wind chimes were ringing constantly and we decided we better give up the idea of sleeping outside. This kind of weather is fairly normal for our area in the summer and we have a couple of these storms usually in July or August. What turned this into an unusual event was the length of the storm. We still were having lightning, thunder, wind, and rain until at least 4 AM. It was a restless night for all of us as we kept getting up to peer out the windows and doors at the awesome display of power in this storm.

The garden still had plenty of beautiful flowers for a bouquet this morning.

The power went out for a short time but all in all there was little other inconvenience from the storm. Today the sun rose and warmed the air and made us all feel welcome. The windows were opened and the fans turned on to drive away the humidity a bit.

Right on time for our Summer Weather Challenge!

Here are a few of our other summer weather entries:
Summer Weather 2011 – Can You Say HOT?
Summer Weather Sunrise/Sunset Observations 2010

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Barb — 1 Comment

Not Quite Sand Nature Study – Creek Gravel and Rocks

We have not made it to the ocean yet this summer. We have big plans to go later this month but we had the opportunity to do some dirt, gravel, and sand gathering this past weekend up in the Sierra Nevada. We took a day trip to Grover Hot Springs State Park which is a complete blog entry all on its own. I will save that for later in the week.

For this post I will share a little of our nature study using the Outdoor Hour Challenge for Sand and Soil from the Summer Sizzle ebook series. We used the creek running next to the picnic area to enjoy some rock, sand, and gravel observation time. This is an interesting geological area which we are planning on going back to explore some more.

This was a creek that meanders a bit and we tried to find some animal prints but we had no luck. There wasn’t much sand on the banks but it was more like gravel or pebbles. There were little fish and lots of insect larvae in the small pools along the banks.
The creek was very shallow and perfect for sticking hot toes in while you explore the smooth rocks of varied colors.
We used an empty water bottle to collect a bit of “dirt” which is mostly decomposed granite gravel and a bit of the “soil”. My hubby found that doing this left his hands super dirty with a fine dusting of soil. He of course used this as an excuse to wash his hands in a waterfall.

I am going to wait until after our beach excursion to do the up close observation with the hand lens, having Mr. B compare the dirt we collected from the creek with the sand we collect from the ocean beach. I think this will make it a bit more interesting and give him something to record in his nature journal.

Summer nature study is at its best when you can combine it with an outdoor family adventure. It becomes just an extension of what you do to make your time outdoors more enriching. We didn’t take nature journals or field guides this time but the atmosphere was one where we were always alert to find something interesting.

Like the rock in the photo above….just one of the many interesting rocks that we saw on the hiking part of our day. We also saw some wildflowers, a few butterflies, heard and observed quite a number of birds, and ended up sitting in the natural hot springs. Yes, this was a great day….more soon!
Don’t forget the Summer Photo Challenge! Here are the details and here is the Pinterest Board.

Tag: Family Outdoor Hour Challenge