Tag: Nature journal example

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Violets are Blue? How about Purple?

We began our study by reading the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study. Wow! If you are the least bit interested in violets and you get the chance, you must read the information in the Handbook of Nature Study, pages 476-479. This section is jam-packed with information about violets but also about more general ideas for a nature portfolio (we would call it a nature journal).

“To make this work of the greatest use and interest, each pupil should make a portfolio of the violets of the locality. This may be in the form of pressed and mounted specimens, or of water-color drawings. In either case, the leaf, leafstalk, flower, flower stalk, and rootstock should be shown, and each blossom should be neatly labeled with name, locality, and date. From the nature-study standpoint, a portfolio of drawings is the more desirable, since from making the drawings the pupils become more observant of the differences in structure and color which distinguish the species. Such a portfolio may be a beautiful object…..Each drawing may be followed by a page containing notes by the pupil and some appropriate quotation from botany, poetry, or other literature.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 478


The variety of violets that grow in our yard is extremely fragrant. It is hard to imagine that such a sweet, strong smell comes from such a delicate little bloom.


Our violets grow in a shady, moist area of our yard, mostly around the edges of our deck. They spread easily to other shady areas as well and it is always a joy to see them sprout up in new places.

We carefully observed whether our violets had the leaf stalks come directly from the underground rootstocks or if they came from a common stem as suggested in the Handbook. We observed that the leaves were smooth and glossy. We looked at the sepals and petals.

We looked into the opening that leads to the nectar-spur. We found the tiny undevelped flowers that will produce seeds down near the rootstalk that are meant for self-pollination. So many things we would have never thought to look for all on our own.

As I suspected, I was the only one who wanted to actually watercolor in their nature journal. I allow the boys the freedom to choose how to follow up their nature study.


We pressed a leaf and a flower for my son’s nature journal binder.


I love working with watercolor pencils….such an easy way to get a great effect in your nature journal.

It felt so good to be out in the garden this morning. The sun was warm and it was great to spend time with the boys. Our hands got a little dirty in the soil and that is oh, so good after a long winter. I look forward to seeing what you come up with for your Wednesday Flower Study.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2008/05/green-hour-challenge-13-flower-parts.html

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Desert Nature Study-Joshua Tree National Park and More

I wanted to share some more of the photos from our trip to the desert that we took a few weeks ago. The photo above is from Joshua Tree National Park. The scene is typical of what you will find as you hike along the trails of the park. It has taken me three trips to the desert to begin to develop a love for the animals and plants that live here. In this strange and wonderful landscape, you can find the most beautiful of things if you look carefully enough.

There really are blooming plants here and if you get the chance to get up close, you realize that there are bees and other insects as well as birds that are attracted to the color and fragrance.

I will admit that there are sections of the park that are more rock than anything else. My two boys couldn’t resist a good climb when they saw it.

When you get up close you see all the intricate patterns and designs of the desert plants. I believe this is some kind of cholla cactus.

Now here was something that surprised me and I examined it carefully for some time. Can you see all the different colors of lichen on this rock? There is a moss green, a grey-green, an orange and a soft yellow-green all living right here on the side of this rock. Beautiful.

Many times as we hike along we name the rock formations we see. The boys named this one “Whale Head”.

Not to be confused with “Whale’s Mouth”.

They keep me smiling…..and thinking.

We came across a wash on our hike and the wildflowers were already blooming. There are three different flowers blooming in this photo…two white and the desert sand verbena.

How about a video? (Why does it take so looooong for the videos to load onto Blogger anyway?)
This squirrel was entertaining us with his acrobatics…trying to get that certain pod to eat.

Here is what the squirrel was gathering to eat. This is a palo verde tree.

I took a lot of photos at the Living Desert Museum and I shared a lot of the butterfly and hummingbird photos already but here are a few more of the larger animals we saw that the boys spent a lot of time observing.

The giraffes…there were four of them.


The cheetahs..there were two of them. I love this photo….look at that face!


For some reason I threw our nature journals in my backpack and we took the opportunity in the afternoon to slow down and do some sketching at the museum. It was a great way to remember our time there.


What a great memory.

It was great way to end our stay at the museum. The desert holds so many interesting and surprising creations for us to learn about….a life time of learning just one plant and one bird and one animal at a time.

So whether you venture out in the national park or you stay in town and visit the Living Desert Museum….there is so much to enjoy as a family. Pick your adventure.

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Birds in the Winter: Our Winter Wednesday Bird Style

We recently participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count and even though this is our third year participating, we still found it a thrilling activity. The whole family participated at some point over the weekend and although it was a very snowy weekend, we saw some amazing birds. This was a great way to learn about our winter birds and we took the opportunity to combine the Bird Count with Winter Wednesday.

The point that sticks out to me this year is that we had no trouble identifying any of the birds that we observed. We have built up over the last three years the ability to quickly name any bird that happens into our yard or to our feeders. I think that is amazing!

Here is our list of birds that we saw over the weekend:
White-breasted nuthatch
Spotted towhee
California towhee
Cedar waxwing
Western Scrub-jay
Oak titmouse
House sparrows
House finches
Black-eyed juncos
American robins
American crows
Anna’s hummingbird
White-crowned sparrows
Canadian geese

We decided to learn more about the White-breasted nuthatch since it was one of the birds mentioned in the Discover Nature in Winter chapter notes. We have a pair of these that frequent our feeders on a daily basis. They are such perky little birds and have such an interesting sound. They are very acrobatic and entertain us when they climb down the tree trunks head first.

We started off with a coloring page from the Cornell University website found at this link:
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and National Audubon Society
Previously, I had printed out the table of contents and it hangs on the wall near our bird viewing window. When we observe a new bird, we check the list and see if there is a coloring page for that particular bird. Then I print just that page out for those that want one for their nature journal.

We also looked the white-breasted nuthatch up in our field guide and on the All About Birds website.

I was interested in learning more about the Cedar waxwing birds that we saw in our trees during the Bird Count. We counted 61 of them at one time! This was the most we had ever seen all in one flock. They were eating the berries/nuts out of the pistache tree.

I used a coloring sheet from the Cornell book as well and then I looked information up in our field guide and at All About Birds. I learned the meaning of the word “frugivore“.

We also learned what is meant by the term “field marks“.

We also found these feathers in our backyard this week and we haven’t been able to figure out who they belong to yet.

There is always something new to research and learn right from our own backyard. 🙂

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Skunks and Badgers: Our Outdoor Hour

Our Outdoor Hour Challenge #50 – Skunks and Badgers

Our area is inhabited by quite a few striped skunks. In the summer time we frequently see them in the evening hours in our backyard as they dig under the birdfeeder and in the yard. We even had a family of skunks living under our house a few years ago.

Every night that summer we would have the fragrance of skunk to contend with. We sort of became used to smelling it at night but when they would sometimes spray right up under the windows, it would make you feel sick to your stomach.

This time of year we only occasionally see skunks and it is a nice break in our “nature study”.

This is a photo from last year and it shows what the skunks come and do at night in our yard. They dig around looking for insects and worms and the holes look like swirls when they are done. This was an especially bad night where I am so grateful they decided to dig in the unlandscaped part of the yard and not a few feet over and into the grassy area. They are very good diggers as you can see. This year we have a dog that sleeps outside in her kennel so we shall see how that goes with the resident skunk population.

On another topic, we did have a special treat this week while we were on our trip to the desert. The Living Desert Museum actually had a badger to view and observe! We had never seen a real badger before and we were surprised at the size and the claws! The badger was busy digging in his enclosure so we stood and watched him for a long time and we can now see how he uses those long claws to dig his burrow.

Skunks are really an ongoing nature study subject for our family since we have them so close at hand. We have learned to live with them and to stay out of their way.

https://naturestudyhomeschool.com/2010/09/ohc-summer-serie-12-raccoons-and-skunks.html

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Winter Weather Report (part of challenge 50)

We completed our winter weather study today. We had a break in the rain so we could go outside and gather some first hand information.

Yesterday we had a full rainbow out our back window. I don’t know if you can see it because it is so faint but maybe if you click the photo it will show up.

My son completed his winter weather activity….with his own style. He drew the clouds and the view out the window in the big box and a winter scene in the top box.

I realized that maybe we should be doing the seasonal observations on the first day of the season. That means we will need to complete the spring observation in a few weeks.

If you read my blog with any frequency, you will remember that we had quite a bit of snow and very cold weather a few weeks ago. For now, our surroundings seem to be heading quickly towards spring.

Here are some signs that we found today.

My bulbs are pushing up into the sunshine.

Our indoor forsythia is blooming.

Our twig from our tree that we brought inside a few weeks ago is really starting to have leaf buds.

We saw the buckeye starting to leaf out.


The daffodils are blooming.


The plum tree is blossoming this week.

Look’s like spring is coming doesn’t it?

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Morning Tree Silhouettes: Our Ongoing Tree Study

We have been watching and observing all the different shapes of tree silhouettes we have in our neighborhood. We are all pointing out different shapes and patterns and I can honestly say we are loving our winter trees.

This morning we were looking out and noticed that our trees were filled with American Robins. I counted sixteen of them at one time in the trees along the side of our house.


The sunrise was just so pink and pretty and then the birds with their dark silhouettes….I couldn’t resist trying to get a photo or two or three. If you click to enlarge and look closely, you will see several bird sitting on branches.

All of the photos above were taken within minutes of each other and you can see the sky and the light changed so fast.

Here is my son’s tree silhouette of the walnut tree in our backyard.

I always think of his sketching as sort of gesture drawing. He has such a unique style all to himself.

Great study this week.

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Watercolor Crayons-Complete Leaf Sketch Video

Over on my art blog I shared a short video last month on how to use watercolor crayons to draw and then paint a leaf in my nature journal. I had lots of readers email ask if I could make a video showing a start to finish watercolor crayon leaf so they would feel more confident to give it a try.


It took a little time to get this video pulled together and I had to do a little editing to get it to work on YouTube but here you go.


I am using watercolor crayons in my regular sketch journal. (click over to the blog to watch the video)

Hope this helps some of you out with getting starting with watercolor crayons.

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Fall Leaf: Watercolor Crayons Demo

I posted a tutorial and video about using watercolor crayons in your nature journal. You may wish to pop over to my other blog to view the complete entry.

Here is the video if you are interested in learning how to use watercolor crayons in your nature journal.

Make sure to go over to the other blog to view the complete entry.

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Fungus and Fern Hikes: Our Outdoor Hour Challenge #41

We have been on the lookout for mushrooms and ferns for the last few weeks in anticipation of this challenge. I am overwhelmed with how much I don’t know about mushrooms at this point but I am determined to document the mushrooms and other fungus that we see so that when I have a cold winter day and I want to spend some time with a field guide, I will be able to flip through the photos and hopefully come up with names for them.

I decided that there are so many photos that I would make a slideshow on Flickr.com to share with you. The fungi are from three different places but the majority are from my own yard or from a hike within three miles of my house. The others are from the Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Mushroom Slideshow– Don’t miss viewing this page with all my fungus images

As we hiked yesterday, I noticed that the boys were catching sight of more and more varieties of mushrooms than ever before. They even spotted some that I didn’t see and directed me to go back to the spot and take a photo. 🙂

This particular hike they were having a good time in the cool fresh air together.

If you look carefully up over the trail where the boys are hiking, you will notice a tree that broke off and is just barely hanging in place. The boys thought they should try to throw rocks at it to see if they could get it to come down but my husband explained that he didn’t think that was a really great idea.

I noticed that I was getting into quite a few sticker type seeds as we walked along.

We hiked back to the top and noticed that the moon was up over the oaks. What a great blue sky, don’t you think?

So I am still getting used to my new little camera but I think I will like it in the long run. It has a better zoom and the viewing screen is much bigger.

Here are the last of the photos for today.

Backside of a fern
Big ferns along the path.

Ferns along the side of a gully that will have a creek running in it once it rains again around here. 🙂

Here is my son’s mushroom diagram for his nature journal. We copied this out of the Handbook of Nature Study, page 719.

This was a great challenge for our family and we never dreamed we would find so many different kinds of mushrooms and other fungi to study.

I encourage you all to give the challenge a try either now or when your weather is cooperating.

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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.