Nature journal example Archives

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Barb — 4 Comments

Our Fall Leaf Study – A Lesson in Teen Nature Study

Pressed leaves going into my nature journal (See the November Newsletter for instructions.)

We are finally starting to see some fall colors all over our neighborhood. With our autumn color words in mind, we try to challenge each other to find just the right color words as we drive around town…noticing the crimson, the indigo, the mahogany, and the bronze of the leaves. (Download your own Advanced Fall Color Activity from Hearts and Trees.)

As part of the Leaf Close-Up challenge, Mr. B was happy to come along to gather fall leaves but not too excited about doing the follow-up for this one. His teen attitude was that he knew all there was to know about leaves. I let it go for that day since we had enjoyed spending time together outside and I did not want to spoil the mood.

I waited until another day to try the advanced study work suggested in the challenge which was to make our own slides using the leaves we gathered, looking closer at them using a microscope. As much as I want my teen to continue his nature study, I know that pushing him too hard takes the joy out of it and that is the opposite of my aim in continuing nature study through high school.

It can wait.

Fall leaves with larvae.

So, even though a leaf study was not a great fit for Mr. B, I tried to finish the challenge myself this week, hoping he would join me. Well, right off the bat I needed his help with the microscope. It did not seem to be working so he took a look at it for me but he could not get it going either. That ended another day of trying to get this challenge done.

Then on Friday, Mr. A (my older son who has graduated from high school) was home and I asked him if he wanted to finish up the challenge with me. He actually was eager to participate. He brought his own leaves in and got to work. The image below is a glimpse at his notebook page from the More Nature Study ebook. He ended up using the hand lens instead to view the leaves up close.

Advanced Study notebook page from More Nature Study ebook

This challenge led to a light bulb moment for me.

Mr. B was not interested in this particular challenge but we did enjoy our time together outdoors viewing the trees and leaves. For Mr. B, that was enough.
Mr. A *was* interested in taking a closer look with me at the fall leaves even though he has graduated from homeschool.

Lesson? I am succeeding in keeping my teens interested in nature study. As always, I need to learn to be flexible and allow for personal taste and styles of learning.

For more on that topic make sure to read the article in the November edition of my Outdoor Hour Challenge Newsletter from Ellen Crandall (available to all subscribers to my blog-see the sidebar to sign up). She has a few teens in her home that she is encouraging nature study with each month.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Barb — 3 Comments

Afternoon Walk – Birds and Thistles

We took a nice long walk in the warm afternoon sunshine…sort of on a quest to see thistles and also just to enjoy the last of the predicted sunny afternoons.

Our first bird sound and flash of color came with the Red-Winged Blackbird‘s call. The walking trail is right along a little wetland area, creek mostly but a few small ponds. These birds are year-round residents here in our world and an easy beginner’s bird to learn by their call by ear.

We had a mystery bird fly across the trail…looked like a California quail but much larger and with more orange. Yes, orange underneath. I looked it up in my field guide and guess what? A new bird for my local life list! It was a Mountain Quail! It doesn’t get much better than that for this bird lover…a great walk and a new bird for our area. (We have seen Mountain Quail at Yosemite in the past.)

Here is my walking companion…my Kona dog. She is so patient with me when I stop and take photos of plants, butterflies, and birds. She just sits and waits so nicely with that big pink tongue hanging out while I try to get just the right image.

Here is a sneak peek at our thistle study. We did find some Bull Thistle all dried up along the trail…it is so very prickly that I couldn’t pick a thistle head to bring home to study. I was able to pull a few fluffy seeds out though and that is what we will observe closely next week as part of the up-coming thistle study.

I came home and pulled up my North American Birds notebooking page set from Notebookingpages.com and printed off a page for the Red-Winged Blackbird. I remembered I had done a Mountain Quail page when I was at Yosemite a few years ago so I pulled it out and updated it with this sighting. (So don’t laugh at his long skinny legs…birds are hard to draw!)

We are really enjoying the last warm days of our autumn weather, getting outside just a few minutes each day.

The notebook page shown in this entry is NOT in the set from NotebookingPages.com. This set is like this one: Hermit Thrush. The page shown above comes with the Getting Started with the Outdoor Hour Challenge ebook.

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Barb — 1 Comment

Our October Bird List and Sparrow Study Using the Handbook of Nature Study

As part of our House Sparrow study, we kept track of the tally of birds who have visited our feeders. We have a regular contingency of sparrows but this month the numbers have greatly increased. We saw two kinds of sparrows this month.

House Sparrows

White-Crowned Sparrows

Using the More Nature Study Challenge for House sparrows, we did some research to see what other kinds of sparrows there are in our neighborhood. We did this by going to the Great Backyard Bird Count website, clicking the Explore the Results button at the top, and then entering our town name. This brings up all the statistics from the latest Bird Count – Bird species, number of birds, number of people reporting observations of a particular bird. I found this very helpful. According to the lists, in February there are lark sparrows, song sparrows, house sparrows, and golden-crowned sparrows seen in our town.

Advanced follow-up notebook page from the More Nature Study with the OHC ebook.

We decided to look those particular sparrows up in our field guide and note their field marks just in case we happen to see these three other species sometime in our area. The trouble is that the females all look very similar. We found the What’s That Sparrow? page on the Cornell website very helpful.

Here is the list of other October birds…we were not as diligent this month at recording our birds but I am going to try to keep it as a daily task for Mr. B the whole month of November. 🙂

October 2011
California towhee
Spotted towhee – first ones we have seen since spring at our feeder
White-crowned sparrows – increase in numbers
House sparrows – increase in numbers
White-breasted nuthatch
Oak titmouse
House finches
Turkey vultures – soaring overhead
Mourning doves
Western scrub jays
Lesser goldfinches
American robin
American crow
Anna’s hummingbirds – still coming in numbers to the feeders

Heard our Great horned owl and California quail
Along the road we saw Wild turkeys, Brewer’s blackbirds, pigeons, Canada geese, and a Snowy egret.
There were also several Red-tail hawks and a Cooper’s hawk on a drive to town.

Do any of you participate in the Project FeederWatch Program? It starts the second Saturday in November and I think our family is going to join in this year since we have made a habit of keeping track of our feeder birds anyway. Do you want to join up too? Click over and read all about it! Or watch a video.

We also are submitting this post to Heather’s Tweet and See link-up.

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Barb — 2 Comments

Our Pear Study Using the Outdoor Hour Challenge

Our study has been actually on-going since the spring when we first noticed that our pear tree was loaded with blossoms. We have been eagerly watching the progress since then and it culminated this week with actually eating the pears…but not until after we had closely observed them and dissected them as part of the more advanced suggestions in More Nature Study #3.

We took a quick trip outdoors to snap a few images of the leaves and bark but the highlight was to come inside and actually take a close look at the fruit.

Mr. B was willing to complete the dissection lab with the pears from our backyard tree and he did a great job recording his results on the notebook page. I think taking the Outdoor Hour Challenges up a notch with the more advanced ideas is a great way to keep them interested in nature study. We actually talked about seeds as they relate to what he studied in biology and we also talked about how growing fruit can be so very satisfying. Tend the tree, pick the fruit, enjoy the labor. What a great lesson in life.

Notebook Page from my More Nature Study ebook

I love watching him sketch. Makes me glad that we made nature study a part of our high school plans.

Nature study that ends in eating your subject is always a good thing when you have a teenage boy around.

We will look forward to seeing this sight again in the spring!

I look forward to seeing your results and hearing how your observations went.

If you are interested in more Crop Plants study, I have a series of Outdoor Hour Challenges listed here on the blog. You can find them listed HERE. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the list.

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Posted on September 14, 2011 by Barb — 10 Comments

Our Milkweed Study – Featuring the Pods

Showy Milkweed pod and dried flowers – Yosemite Valley 8/2011

Nature study while traveling is a gentle way to learn more about a new place, or in this case, a familiar place. Our family spends quite a bit of time at Yosemite National Park and consider it part of our big “backyard”. Learning flower names, tree species, more about the mammals who live there, and how they all work together has been a layer of understanding that over time has given us much pleasure. We KNOW this place and appreciate the beauty and awesome balance found in this most special of valleys.

As part of our milkweed study, I remembered an abundance of Showy milkweed in Yosemite Valley…whole patches in the meadows. We made a special walk along the Valley floor to observe an abundance of milkweed…it was hot in the sun but that is part of the late summer experience at Yosemite.

I was wishing were not a national park so we could pick some pods to dissect….we restrained ourselves and used our eyes and camera to capture our experience instead. There is so much to learn by using your senses.

Things we found interesting to think about and research a little more:

Insects we observed: milkweed beetle, some sort of bee/wasp
Size of some of the pods…was it a “good” year for milkweed?
How long until the pods burst open and shed their seeds?

Mr. B did a comparison of the milkweed seeds (images from a previous encounter and internet research), dandelion seeds (found in our backyard), and the cattail (gathered at our local patch).

We also have a small pot of milkweed on our back deck that we have been nurturing for two years. It did grow a bit better this year but still no blooms or pods. I am going to try again next year with new seeds but after reading about milkweed in the Handbook and online, we may plant them directly in the garden.

All in all, I think the new Advanced Follow-Up suggestions went rather well for this challenge.

If you would like to see another milkweed entry we did a few years ago, you can click over here:

Milkweed (Challenge #30 Weeds and Seeds)

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Barb — 2 Comments

Dragonfly Study Using the Handbook of Nature Study

Pond study is always a great summertime activity and that is one reason I chose ponds as the theme of the August Newsletter challenges. We spend one day a week at Grandpa’s helping him with yard work and he has a small pond that is spring-fed and we enjoy investigating it when we visit.

Dragonfly in our backyard earlier this summer

We started off our dragonfly study with the dragonflies that visit our backyard everyday during the summer months….some looking like little hummingbirds and others looking like helicopters. We sometimes even have a swarm of dragonflies all at once in our yard and then they disappear.

For the August Newsletter challenge to observe some dragonflies, we visited Grandpa’s pond with the intention of expanding our dragonfly study. He has blue damselflies which are so pretty and before we knew any better, we called them dragonflies. There are some simple differences between dragonflies and damselflies.

Dragonflies land with their wings out and damselflies land with their wings in
Damselflies have wing pairs that match and dragonflies the wing pairs are dissimilar
Dragonfly eyes touch or nearly touch and damselflies have clearly separated eyes

We read in the Handbook of Nature Study about the dragonfly and made some notes on our nature notebook pages. Mr. B drew both the Bluet damselfly and the Red skimmer dragonfly and they will go side by side in his nature journal.

For more information on using the OHC to learn more about dragonflies, you can see OHC #28.

I cannot resist sharing the prettiest dragonfly I ever saw and was able to get a good image for my nature journal. This one we saw when we were in Atlanta, GA a number of years ago. I think he is magnificent!

Dragonfly Link to Lapbook Pieces on HomeschoolShare: Dragonfly Animal Study. If you have little ones you could print out the “What is the difference?”, “Dragonfly Design”, and “Dragonfly Diagram” pieces and include those in your nature journal. What could be easier?

I look forward to seeing some of your pond studies or any other nature studies you have been cooking up this month. Make sure to submit your entries to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. The link is at the top of my blog and on my sidebar.

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Barb — 4 Comments

Sunflower Garden – July Newsletter Grid Study

Our Sunflower Garden July 17, 2011

Sunflowers are the theme of our garden this year….as anticipated. We planted our seeds on May 10th and they started blooming on July 16th. That is a long time to wait but so worth the time and effort! Now with the July Newsletter focus on sunflowers using the Nature Study Grid and notebooking page, we are slowing down to do some careful observations. This is also made easy by the fact that we are participating in the Great Sunflower Project and counting bees.

Here are the first of our blooms.

Sunflower with lots of pollen!

This is actually not one of the seeds that we planted but it popped up under the birdfeeder. They are a perfect complement to our little backyard feeder garden.

From Renee’s Garden Seeds – Royal Flush. I love the watercolor like colors in this bloom.

Here is another one from Renee’s Garden – Chocolate Cherry. Amazing color in the garden!

I think this is the third seed from Renee’s Garden – Van Gogh.

We found this spider crawling on a big sunflower last week…..he sure blends in.

Here is another image from the volunteer sunflowers around the birdfeeder. If you look carefully, you can see that these are actually two different kinds of sunflowers.

Another bee favorite in our yard is the coneflower. They are rather tall this year and always full of buzzing bees. Coneflowers are on the list of bee attractive plants that you can use as part of the Great Sunflower Project this summer.

How about that bee? He is in our bee balm and loving it. I decided this is a plant that I need to add to more of my flower garden next year.

We have been busy learning some new things and making lots of detailed observations using all of our sunflowers. How about your family? Have you done your July Newsletter sunflower study? I look forward to seeing your entries in the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.

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 July 18, 2011 by Barb — 3 Comments

Nighttime Critters – Our List from the July Newsletter

Summer evenings outdoors….with our chiminea.

We have been working on our July Newsletter Nighttime Critter Challenge all month. I wanted to post a little of what we are observing and learning to give you an idea of how you can pick a few things from your area to study in the evening hours. I will update our list after the end of the month with any new finds.

Our most predominant nighttime critters of interest are the Brown bats that come every single night to fly in our backyard. I wrote about them back in May as part of mammal study. For the July newsletter challenge for Nighttime Critters, I decided to share a few of our other nighttime visitors of interest. This study was sort of on-going because when the weather is hot, we tend to drag sleeping bags out to the back deck to sleep in the cool night air. We all lay awake and listen and watch as the nighttime settles in around us.

Shooting stars, satellites zipping across the sky, the moon, the swaying trees in the breeze, and the night sounds all entertain us as we wait for sleep to come.

Fill In The Circle and Fill In With Color Example – Poor owl sketch…he has such a crooked beak.

One of the things that we have discovered sleeping outside on hot summer nights is that we have quite a few great horned owls in our neighborhood. We can hear them calling back and forth right after the sun goes down and then again at around 5 AM. Here is a link to AllAboutBirds.org and if you click the sound button, you will hear the two types of sounds we hear from our owls: Great Horned Owls. We have yet to actually see them but they are out there…no doubt about it.

We also are serenaded by crickets when the temperatures get just right. It is amazing how you don’t hear any crickets and then all of a sudden it is as if someone turned on a cricket soundtrack and they all chirp at the same time. The lesson in the Handbook of Nature Study gives a great illustration showing the parts of the cricket and an excellent explanation of how he “sings”. (Lesson 82)

“The wing covers are much shorter than the abdomen and beneath them are vestiges of wings, which are never used. The male has larger wing covers than the female, and they are veined in a peculiar scroll pattern. This veining seems to be a framework for the purpose of making a sounding board of the wing membrane, by stretching it out as a drumhead is stretched.” Handbook of Nature Study.

Turn in your copy of the Handbook of Nature Study to read much more in the lesson explaining this interesting creature.There is such a simple explanation of the mechanics of the crickets chirping that it is perfect for sharing with younger children. The crickets and the frogs compete in our neighborhood for the winner of the “background” noise. It seems as if one or the other is singing their little hearts out.

We smell skunks quite a few nights a week. Sleeping outside we hear rustling in the garden and I think it is the skunk. I know they dig around the base of the birdfeeder outside our window but over the years I have decided that if he leaves me alone, I will leave him alone. Here is another entry where I talk about our nighttime visitors.

Nighttime Critter LIst - Outdoor Hour Challenge

List from the July Newsletter. I cut it out and taped it inside my nature journal.

One last nighttime critter we have had around the neighborhood is the raccoon. Our neighbor has been sharing how they keep forgetting to bring in the dog’s food dish at night and the raccoon has decided that it makes a easy snack taken just outside their patio door. We have had our share of raccoons in the yard over the years but we haven’t seen any lately. Here is an entry sharing one raccoon experience: Raccoon Visitor.

Well that gives you a taste of what we have around here in the evenings. I just thought of something else I need to put on my list….moths.

I look forward to reading about your nighttime critters. Don’t forget to post your entry and then submit it to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival before 7/30/11 for a chance in the July Newsletter giveaway!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Posted on July 12, 2011May 1, 2023 by Barb — 6 Comments

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly – Our July Newsletter Insect Study

Swallowtail at Yosemite National Park 2006

Since we just studied and observed our honeybees, we decided to learn more about another common backyard insect that we see all the time in our butterfly garden….the Western tiger swallowtail. There are some amazing images on this webpage. There is also quite a bit of information on Enchanted Learning.

We often see swallowtails on our butterfly bushes.

This rather large butterfly is a frequent visitor to our backyard habitat. One afternoon this past week I watched as two swallowtails dipped and swirled around the garden. They are so pretty but they don’t stay put very long at all.

We pulled out the Handbook of Nature Study and read the section on Black swallowtail butterflies to get sort of an overview of this insect. (Lesson 70) Here is a little excerpt:

“This graceful butterfly is a very good friend to the flowers, being a most efficient pollen-carrier. It haunts the gardens and sips nectar from all the blossom cups held out for its refreshment; and it is found throughout almost all parts of the United States. The grace of its appearance is much enhanced by the “swallowtails,” two projections from the hind margins of the hind wings.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 301

We got out our insect field guide and found out some more interesting facts:
Its caterpillars feed on alder, poplar, willow.
Habitat: Mixed and deciduous forests, open ares, even in urban areas.
Wingspan 3 1/2″ to 4 3/8″
Yellow wings, single “tail”

This Saturday, July 16th, is the day that the Great Sunflower Project is requesting that we observe our bees. Read more about how you can participate HERE. I look forward to hearing about your bees as part of the July Newsletter challenge. You can also observe your sunflowers at the same time!

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Barb — 4 Comments

Oregon Coast Hiking – Picture Perfect

I just need to face the facts and accept that my boys are now the family leaders when it comes to hiking. They shoot ahead and find all sorts of things to be interested in as they hike along together. My hubby and I take a slower pace but then again, I am always stopping to capture some of the images that inspire me.

This is a photo Mr. B took while we were hiking down to the beach. The rabbits like to hide alongside the trail and since the boys were ahead of us, they spotted the cute little beach bunnies first.

The trail winds down the cliff and the wild azaleas are amazing in June. The pink against the blue backdrop of the ocean and sky is dazzling. This is at Harris Beach State Park….our favorite.

Here is one of the many types of berries that are to be found on the coast trails. Twinberry Honeysuckle is such a great shape and color. I am going to be drawing it in my nature journal this week as I catch up on my journaling.

We hiked another section of the Oregon Coast Trail which leads down to the Indian Sands. This area of dunes leads down to a rocky steep coastline and the views both north and south are amazing.

Here is a better look at the dunes covered with wildflowers in June. Indian paintbrush, clover, beach strawberries, Douglas irises, lupine, dandelions, yarrow, and many more are found growing low to the sand….it is always windy here so be ready to be blasted with sand if you hike down to the edge.

Here is a close-up of one of my favorite plants…salal.

It made it into my nature journal on this trip. After dinner, I would sit at the picnic table and review with my field guide all the things that we saw that day. I then would pull out my nature journal, watercolor pencils, and my Sharpie Ultra Fine Tip pen and I am all ready to record a special subject from our day. It only takes a few minutes and it is a wonderful way to add another layer to your hiking experiences.

So there you have a glimpse into our coastal hikes which I think we ended up putting in about twenty miles over the course of four days. I can think of no better way to get to know an area.

You can read about our tidepool adventures in this entry: Oregon Coast-Tidepools of Wonder.

Tag: Nature journal example