Journey to Excellence

Barb at Handbook of Nature Study has posted the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival: August Newsletter Edition . If you are interested in some great Pond Study posts, head over there. A couple of our nature posts are included! If you would like to receive the monthly newsletter with GREAT nature study ideas, she now has a place where you can subscribe to her blog via e-mail and receive the newsletter directly in your inbox. I highly recommend it! She does all of the work for you. All you have to do is play along.

Yesterday was the conclusion of our Pond Study . It was a beautiful day, not like the rainy day we endured last week. Here is a picture of the pond in our neighborhood where we typically do our studies. We were set on seeing some dragonflies while we were there this time because we know they are usually there. Before we went for our Pond Walk, we read the book Pond Walk , written and illustrated by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. This was a great book to prepare us for our walk! It even described the difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly. (Do you know the difference?) ... a dragonfly's wings are expanded when it lands and a damselfly's wings move in close to it's body. We watched them at the pond and determined that they were, in fact, dragonflies. However, we weren't quick enough to get a picture of them being still. Brynne searched around for some rocks and sticks to make a painted rock turtle, as demonstrated in the back of Pond Walk . She revised he...

As part of The Outdoor Hour Challenge's August Newsletter , the kids and I partook in the first part of our pond study . It was drizzling the whole time we were there, so there wasn't much activity. And, it was slippery, slimy wet and Brynne and I were terrified of the possibility of a slippery, slimy snake, so we didn't dig into our study like we would normally do. Walking around the pond we did find an egg. It was small and a tad bit squishy. A snake egg, perhaps? I collected tons of different leaves for Dawson's Apologia Biology Module 14 study while he and Brynne sat down to sketch. I had them look for something big to sketch and then concentrate on a smaller detail of it to sketch in a detail box (suggested by the newsletter). Brynne sketched a leaf, some water, a rose (that wasn't there) and a log and made a detail box of the bark on the log from an up-close photo I took. (Again, she was too scared of snakes to get too close, so she sketched from t...

Our house sits on the edge of a bluff. There are large, mature trees all down the bluff. There area also large black birds that fly about those trees. When we first got our puppies, they were only about 2 pounds. While potty-training them we built a cage for them to use because these birds would swoop down and get field mice out off our property. We didn't want our puppies to suffer the same fate. I always thought they were some type of eagle. A month or so ago some of these large black birds were in our neighbors' backyard. They were not eagles. I suspected they were crows. But they were huge! We also thought they might be ravens. They looked an awful lot like something Edgar Allen Poe would have had for a pet. So I started doing some research. After reviewing the pages of my Handbook of Nature Study , I was pretty sure they really were crows. The leaves had all fallen off our trees and the crows' nest started to be exposed. And then we started to notice the ...

Inspired by the Christmas Book and Activity a Day challenge hosted by Shannon at Welcome to our Wonderland , (which we loved, loved, loved) and in conjunction with the Bird focus we will have in our The Outdoor Hour challenges for 2011, I will be starting a Bird Book and Activity challenge starting January 3, 2011. Each week we will read a specific bird book (on Monday, and then again throughout the week for review), some will be fiction and some will be non-fiction. With that book we will do specific activities and/or crafts throughout the week. I don't necessarily want to do a Linky or anything, but I would love for you to join me if you would like. I plan to post, on Thursdays, the book we will read the following week and all of the activities we plan to do. By posting all of the information about the book and activities ahead of time, as well as all supplies needed, I hope to make it easier for you to join in on the fun. All of the books we will be using are in our public...

Wow .. fitting our Outdoor Hour nature study into our week has been difficult impossible. But, nature has been on our mind all the time, especially when it comes to Birds. I entered a contest to win Your Backyard by Crowe's Nest MEDIA and WON! We have received the dvd, but haven't watched it yet. I am wanting to do a real bird study starting in January, when we get settled back into somewhat of a normal schedule. Outdoor Hour Challenge #4 It’s Coming Into Focus 1. In the Handbook of Nature Study , read “The Uses of Scientific Names” on pages 10 and 11. Also read “The Field Notebook” on pages 13-15. Highlight or underline the points that you would like to remember. 2. I am going to suggest that you pick a focus area for your nature study. Taking into account what you have close at hand, what season it is, and your child’s interest, look through the table of contents in the Handbook of Nature Study and pick one section that you will focus on for the next six to e...

We have fallen a couple of weeks behind in our Nature Study and I have missed it. But I realized yesterday that a nature study can take place at any time. As I sat in my living room, I looked out onto my back porch and saw a bird (that, darnit, I didn't have time to investigate as to its kind) that was pecking at some wood on our porch. I don't know if it was looking for bugs or getting some splinters for a nest. In any event, I was in awe watching it. Lesson #3 of The Outdoor Hour was this: Outdoor Hour Challenge #3 Now is the Time to Draw 1. Read pages 16-17 of the Handbook of Nature Study . Highlight or underline those parts that will help you understand better the connection between nature study, language arts, and drawing. 2. This week take your 10-15 minute nature walk. If you have tired of your own backyard, venture down your street, around your block, or to a near-by park. Remember Anna Comstock’s words, “Nature study is for the comprehension of the individual...

This week was a different one for us. Dawson's 14th birthday was on Monday. Although I let him sleep in, we still had school that day. We tried to keep it as fun as possible. Our public school's Fall Break was Thursday and Friday, and continues until school resumes Tuesday, so we took/are taking those days off, too. We still got lots accomplished this week! Brynne ~ 1st Grade The 3 R's ~ R eading, w R iting and a R ithmetic Brynne started her weekly journal pages by finishing the sentence, "I like to eat ..." She put "Mackrone and ces" (macaroni and cheese) and drew a picture of it. She did her workboxes full of daily phonics, mini readers, math pages and others. She continues to amaze me with how much she knows. Since we use my public school 1st Grader's homework for her lessons too, it has become very apparent to me that I am going to need to order a good Saxon Phonics instruction book. Sad that I don't know phonics rules well enough to t...

Our day didn't turn out the way we had expected ... it was better!! I had intended for us to skip Lesson #2 and go straight to this week's topic on Apples. The kids and I planned to drive an hour away to a working apple orchard, pick apples, buy many varieties, have a picnic, go through the pumpkin patch, buy a couple more pumpkins, come home and bake some applesauce and cobbler. I just happened to remember that last year the orchard was not open for picking because of the previous winter's ice storm. So I decided to call before we left. Guess what ... the orchard is not open this year either!   Ohhhhhh how disappointed I would have been {not to mention the kids} if we would have driven that hour for nothing! I suggested we go to a park today instead and have a picnic there. And sweet Brynne said, "I know, we can take apples!" My little problem-solver. It was here that I decided that we would do Lesson #2, as we should have done anyway. Lesson #2 is as ...