Outdoor Hour Challenge: This month we will be using the Reptile and Amphibian Grid Study from the April Newsletter to help us learn more about this interesting topic. Feel free to cut your grid to fit your nature journal or to customize your journal to fit your interests. Don’t forget that you can save the grid study for a future date if you don’t have access to any reptiles or amphibians for this month’s nature study.
Free Printable Notebook Pages:Reptiles and Amphibians Use these pages to help get your family started with good working definitions of both reptiles and amphibians. They also have a place to write any interesting facts you want to remember about these topics.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #2.Use your words to describe any reptiles or amphibians you observe this month. Learning new vocabulary is an important part of nature study and will help your children in their later study of any life science.
March has been filled with lots of free notebooking pages, giveaways, and inspiration from NotebookingPages.com. I want to thank Debra one last time for having such an innovative company that is always trying to take notebooking to the next level. There are so many things I love about notebooking both for homeschooling and for nature journaling and this company always has just the right page for us to use.
Notebooking Opportunities For My Readers
I would love for my readers to take advantage of the 50% off discount code for any nature or science sets: nature50. Please note: add all items to cart before applying the discount code.
I encourage you to become a free member and have access to many notebooking pages to get started if you aren’t sure about this method of keeping your nature journal.
I invite you to one last giveaway coming up this Friday for the Nature Study Bundle of notebooking pages.
Congrats to the three winners so far this month!
Jen G
Gail F
Dianne O
I loved sharing my enthusiasm for notebooking this month and NotebookingPages.com is my preferred supplier of pages for our nature journals.
You can read more about our notebooking in our nature journal here:
Keeping a nature journal using notebooking pages has been a part of our routine for many years. Each page is a treasure, showing some aspect of our personalized learning. Taking the time to slow down and record a memory, an experience, or an interesting fact takes nature study to a higher level.
But, it is always easier to have a stock of pages on hand to quickly print when the mood strikes. That is where this month’s blog sponsor comes in….NotebookingPages.com has a huge library of pages you can use that are ready to go. Although I use many, many of their pages in our homeschool, I will introduce the nature study sets we use in our home for you to get a taste of. You will see just a sampling of the pages available and for most topics there are multiple choices with lines or no lines, some with illustrations and some with a variety of sketch boxes. There will always be a notebooking page you can adapt to your area and topic.
Note: If you have visited NotebookingPages.com before and been overwhelmed, please note that they have done a complete makeover and navigation of their many resources is now much easier and simpler.
How to Personalize Your Pages
Use colored pencils or watercolors
Add an image from your study
Use the pages to keep your life list of birds
Keep track of your garden plants
Complete a four season nature study project
Add your own stories to the page…front or back
I have always had a Treasury Membership which gives me access to all the notebooking pages on the website plus all the new pages she adds during the membership year. There is no need to download every page when you purchase your membership because along with the membership comes access to all those pages forever.
But, if you are just looking to add access to pages for your nature journal and aren’t ready to jump into a full membership, you can purchase individual sets to build up a library of pages to choose from for your nature journal.
Tip: If you purchase a set of notebooking pages, print out the table of contents as a reference. This way you will have a complete list of available notebooking pages and you will be able to quickly find the page you need when the time comes.
Basic Nature Study Set
Click over and see all 292 pages in this set for your to choose from: plants, trees, flowers, rocks, weather, etc. There are primary and regular lined pages with a variety of borders, boxes, lines, and prompts. You will have access to cover pages, bordered pages, and a special Creation Notebook set too. Follow the link above and view every page you will get in this Basic Nature Study Set. $10.95 (Take 50% off with the discount code: nature50 during the month of March 2013).
Birds: North American This is the set we use the most in our family with 97 different birds and over 280 pages available at this time. $8.95 (Take 50% off with the discount code: nature50 during the month of March 2013). World This set adds 30 more birds and over 680 pages available at this time. $5.95 (Take 50% off with the discount code: nature50 during the month of March 2013). Tropical This set adds 43 tropicalbirds for your nature study. $5.95 (Take 50% off with the discount code: nature50 during the month of March 2013). All About Birds This set of 55 pages is a must have for any family that is studying birds. It includes pages for parts of the bird, feathers, migration, and plenty of general birds pages to make it valuable as a reference.$2.95 (Take 50% off with the discount code: nature50 during the month of March 2013).
Wildflowers, Weeds, and Garden Flowers This set includes pages for 45 plants featured in the Handbook of Nature Study. I love the variety of pages that are offered for each plant including coloring pages, lined pages in both primary and regular-8 different styles for each plant. $12.95
Please note: If you already own the Notebooking Treasury Membership, you have access to all these pages already and can find them in your Member Download Center.
Outdoor Hour Challenge: For this challenge, I encourage you to start a life list of birds. A bird life list is a cumulative list of birds that a birder sees and identifies.There are a variety of ways to do a life list including a handwritten list in your nature journal, using a pre-made book, checking off birds and noting the dates in your field guide or from a checklist, keeping an online list at eBird, or using an app on your phone.
Don’t get stuck on picking the “perfect” way to keep your list. Review the choices and then get started. My only regret is that I did not start my personal life list sooner.
I have found that I like to keep multiple lists including one for our yard and neighborhood (by month), by location when you travel (like my Oregon and Yosemite lists), and perhaps even lists by the month or season. You can see my entry on Nature Journal Organization for more information.
You can also start a bird “wish list” and keep track of birds you would like to see in the future. This is especially helpful if you are traveling and can do some preparation before you leave noting the birds you may encounter.
Special Activity:Life List Printable
Bird Life List Printable
I have attempted to create a Life List Printable that will be flexible for you to use in your nature notebook. I am in the process of testing it out in my everyday bird sightings.
Your list can be as detailed as you wish.
Things to include: Date and Time of Day. Location. Gender. Weather. Bird Sounds. Number of birds seen.
Additional resources: Printable Checklists by Country or Region (updated the link with one that should get you started) Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #5.I love the quotes in this challenge from Charlotte Mason. Remind yourself that you are the key to a successful outing and follow your child’s lead as much as possible. After your outdoor time, start or add to your running list of birds you see in your backyard. You can use the notebook page from the ebook for further information.
Outdoor Hour Challenge: This week try to find at least one specific rock to collect and observe. If you need to, pick a rock from your collection and use that as your subject. Use your outdoor time to slow down and really look for rocks or if you have snow on the ground, try to remember where there are rocks in your neighborhood and plan for a future rock hunt when the weather is more agreeable.
You may wish to complete the granite or the quartz challenge that were previously posted here on the Handbook of Nature Study: Granite Study Quartz Study
You may pick any rock to study that you have on hand. There are several other rocks listed in the Table of Contents for the Handbook of Nature Study that you may wish to use in your study.
Printable Activity: Rock Observation Chart: Use this printable chart to examine several of your rocks carefully. This is a little more advanced activity using vocabulary that may be unfamiliar to you. The activity is meant to be a simplified exercise in learning how to use deductive reasoning to identify your rock sample.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #7.We are focusing on rocks this month so you can start your own rock field guide using the directions and notebook page in this challenge. You can record your observations from the printable activity above on your rock field guide card if you wish.
Outdoor Hour Challenge:
This week spend your outdoor time enjoying the daily weather. Keep track of your weather for a week, recording the temperature, rainfall, etc. You can use any of the free printables on my Freebies Page. Look there for the seasonal weather pages and the weather chart.
You can also use any of the Seasonal Weather Challenges from the past that are appropriate for your time of the year:
Printable Notebook Page: During your seasonal weather observations, take a photo of something that shows your current weather conditions. Better yet, let your children take the images and then print them out for a personalized nature journal entry. This can be done in each season and recorded in your nature journal’s seasonal section.
Printable Notebook Page:My Seasonal Weather. Getting Started Suggestion: If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #10.I realize that this is a cold time of year (or hot for you Southern Hemisphere folks) for many of you but there are ways to make a “picnic” happen even if you just drive in the car, park under a tree, and enjoy some sandwiches and hot cocoa. Get creative! If you have a picnic, make sure to take a photo to include in your nature journal. I will challenge myself to taking a picnic in the next few weeks with my family and I will post our experiences here on the blog.
Outdoor Hour Challenge:
This is our last mammal challenge of the month. For this challenge, you can start a life list of mammals using the running list notebook page in my freebie section. Print the page and insert it into your nature journal. Start recording every mammal you observe and keep the list going as long as possible. Printable Notebook Page My Mammal List: You can use this printable page instead of the running list notebook page if you wish to keep your mammal list by season. Reprint this page for every season and then compare your lists.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, the challenge this week is the same as Outdoor Hour Challenge #5. This challenge in the ebook gives you some ideas for lists for your nature journal and a printable notebook page to use if you would like.
“The alert field naturalist learns to look for signs of mammals, even where there is little likelihood of seeing the animals themselves. He becomes an expert at interpreting tracks in mud, dust, or snow; at analyzing scats; at recognizing claw marks, gnaw marks, nests, houses, mounds, ridges, food piles, and other telltale indicators.” Complete Field Guide to American Wildlife by Henry Hill Collins
Outdoor Hour Challenge:
For this nature study challenge we will be looking for signs of mammals. You can look for mammal tracks, holes, scratches on tree trunks, scat, hollows in the trunk of a tree, burrow, holes in the lawn.Record your findings in your nature journal along with a drawing, the date, the weather, the time of day, and the type of animal if you have identified it at this time.
We always enjoy following tracks to see where they will lead…this is especially fun in the snow! Make a mental note to try this activity the next time you have snow in your area.
I am highly recommending this book from Amazon.com:Tracks, Scats and Signs.
I know many of you own it already and now would be the perfect time to pull it off the shelf. It is also contained in this book if you own this one instead: Fun With Nature: Take Along Guide.
Printable Notebook Page
Mammal Letter Notebook Page:After your Outdoor Hour time, write a letter to a friend or relative and tell them about your experiences. You can share anything you observed including any mammals or signs of mammals that you found. Include a sketch of your mammal, the tracks you saw, or tell a story about a mammal. If you saw some tracks, explain how you think the tracks got there. Was the animal looking for food? Finding a place to hide? You can make a copy of your letter and put it in your nature journal.
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, use the suggestions in Outdoor Hour Challenge #1 for your Outdoor Hour time. Although we are looking for signs of mammals this week, make sure to follow up any interest that comes from your time outdoors. You can use the notebook page provided in the ebook to record your experience or you can use the suggestion above to write a letter to a friend or relative about your experience. Above all, enjoy a few minutes outside in your own backyard or neighborhood.
We have fallen into a nice rhythm with the grid study printable from the monthly newsletter. For November and the mammal grid, we decided to print and place it into our nature journal as a reminder of things we could be on the lookout for as we go about our outdoor time during the month.
I had prepared a page to record my observations using the ideas from my Watercolor Block Nature Journal entry. I didn’t want to use another page so I made the grid a “flap” by taping one edge into the journal so you can lift it up and still see what is underneath.
Of course you can just adhere the grid onto a page if you want to and not worry about making a flap.
I pulled our mammal resources off the shelf- field guide to California mammals, field guide to the Sierra Nevada, and my track finder reference. Sometimes just gathering a few resources will spark a new interest in a nature study area you have covered before. This was the case for our family this month. We paged through the field guide, looking at the illustrations and discussing which animals we have seen and which animals we hoped to see in the future.
I added a short list of “hope to see” mammals in my nature journal. We realized that if we were ever going to actually see these animals in the wild we would need to do some more research about where they live, what their tracks look like, and then what their identifying features are.
Of course, none of the mammals on our list is in the Handbook of Nature Study so we are gleaning from books we have on our shelves and from the internet. I wrote our plan for preparation in my nature journal…good reminders since we will be spending a few days up in the mountains later this season and it would be the perfect time to do some observations. There may even be some snow to look for tracks!
Example of the free mammal notebook page available here on my blog.
I printed a few of the mammal notebook pages from my Freebies page and I have them all ready to go when we have a chance to observe any of the mammals from our list. I think we will use the field guide to fill in most of the factual parts of the page but them leave the observation part blank.
I think we are off to a great start on our focus on mammals for the month!
Welcome to the first of the September 2012 Outdoor Hour Challenges. Whether this is your first or your fortieth nature study using the Handbook of Nature Study, please know that I am so glad that you are here and that you are going to join us for a new round of nature study in your own backyard.
Outdoor Hour Challenge:
This week’s challenge, which you can complete at any time that is convenient, is to take a closer look at the subject of ants using the Handbook of Nature Study. You will find the original study here on my blog by following this link: Outdoor Hour Challenge-Ants (from the Spring 2010 ebook).
Printable Notebook Page:
This week the challenge extra is a free printable notebook page that will give you a place to record any of your insect studies. There are two versions for you to download and use with any of the insect challenges. Please use these with any insect you decide to study this month and not just ants.
Insect Study – record your field guide notes and a sketch Insect Notes – simple page with wider lines for younger students
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own this ebook, this week’s ant study would be a great start to Challenge #7 – Your Own Field Guide. You could start with ants and then add more entries as you observe more insects this month. Note there is a create Your Own Field Guide notebook page in the ebook for you to use with this challenge.
Don’t forget that the Getting Started ebook has a complete selection of generic nature journal pages at the back for you to print and use with any challenge.
by Henry Hill Collins
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