Journey to Excellence

Last Friday the kids and I went to the park to collect rocks for our rock study. We got instantly distracted by the ice on the lake and spent the majority of our time breaking ice, exploring animals, and observing things (and animals) trapped under the ice. We ran out of time, and got oh-so-cold, so we gathered up some rocks to take home to study at a later time. With Eli recovering from the stomach flu, none of us had much energy for a full-out day of school today. So it was the perfect time to pull out our rocks and do our rock study. We used the Rock Observation Chart and Rocks Up Close printables from Barb at Handbook of Nature Study . We needed a few supplies: a magnifying glass, rulers, flexible measuring tape, colored pencils, a magnet, a penny, and a nail. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot about our rocks. Brynne decided to start a rock collection.

October's Outdoor Hour Challenges from Handbook of Nature Study centered around Trees. The kids and I had started identifying trees at our local park this summer, so we transitioned into these lessons quite nicely. We didn't get all of the challenges done, per se, but made connections none-the-less. Our fun primarily included going to the park and each choosing a tree to follow all year. Brynne chose the Maple. Eli chose the Sweetgum. And I chose the mighty Oak. I had the kids run around the park and find the tree with the acorns. It took some time, but they found one. We observed the acorns and the oak leaves. Several times through the month I would hold up a leaf at the park to see if they could identify it, trying to focus on the oak, maple, and sweetgum. We are trying to get to know our three trees more intimately, and can't wait to see what they look like covered in snow. We did bark and leaf rubbings of "our trees", and pressed leaves. ...

This has been the challenge I have been waiting all month to do. Every morning, when I walk at the park, I walk past a huge grouping of Queen Anne's Lace. It is so pretty and I couldn't wait for the kids to get down close to it with me. Once we got close to it, I wondered if that's really even what it is! Can someone help me identify it? And as luck would have it, right after we arrived and I took a couple of close-up photos of it, my batteries died on my camera. Urghhhh! We have a nice time of exploration, however. UPDATE: On the way to an out of town football game tonight, I think I saw legitimate Queen Anne's Lace next to the highway in several places. We are going to check it out this week! We used the free notebooking page provided by Barb for today's challenge. Up close and personal we could see that it was covered in bees, spiders, and fireflies. Most of the "Queen Anne's Lace" was still bloomed and very lovely. We measured i...

Last week's Outdoor Hour Challenge was to observe one small square of nature. I took the kids outside and told them to walk around and find any spot around our house that they wanted to observe. Our yard actually would have been a great place to do this because we just moved here and there has not been any landscaping to the yard at all. It is primitive. But, they insisted on going across the street to an empty grass lot that has some shady trees. It was their nature experience, so I relented. They each went to the spot they wanted to observe and I made a, roughly, 1' x 1' square with craft sticks and yarn. I handed them their notebooking pages and some colored pencils and told them to just observe their square. They could dig around and see what was underground, etc. Sadly, they just weren't really into doing this. It felt like more of an assignment instead of a nature adventure. I think that if they would have chosen a more interesting square (like in our ya...

Yesterday we headed out with our Insect Grids from Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenge September Newsletter . We had already spent last week observing ants, but were determined to complete as many items on the grid as we could. Wielded with our clipboards, grids, and new "Homeschooler by Day, Ninja by Night" t-shirts, we set out on our adventure at the local park. Here was our destination. At first there were no insects to be found. But we did come across this ... Then, "Hey! Here's an insect!" Nope, it's a spider. How do we know? It has 8 legs instead of 6. After following a passageway, we found a huge web covered in insects! I put a clipboard behind it so that the insects could be seen well. Many were still alive and struggling for their freedom, like this guy in red. The old railroad tracks had some red ants. Don't get too close! We stood on the bridge and tried to find insects in the pond. We couldn't see an...

It feels so good to be back into a regular schedule of nature study. We had good intentions last year, but it always seemed to get dropped when we got behind. To remedy that situation this year, I have planned for Fridays to be solely about art and nature. I have several goals for nature study this year, but the biggest one is to participate in Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenges through Handbook of Nature Study . I receive the monthly newsletter by e-mail (and you can, too, by going HERE ). She really makes it ridiculously easy for you and me to participate. All you really have to do is grab a nature journal and get outside. This week's topic was Ants. We definitely wanted to make our own ant farm, so prepped a mason jar. We looked and looked for an ant hill, but couldn't find one. Instead, we disturbed a nest at the base of one of our trees. The first thing the kids noticed ... ants scramble when their nest is disturbed! We didn't dig for the queen. We just put some ...