The Blessings Bible Academy: Nature Study Spring Wild Flowers '12

Nature study is a habit we are trying to instill in our weekly rhythms.  Getting ourselves out in nature can be as easy as taking walks or as complex as one would like to investigate and read up on a specimen of interest.  My 7 & 5 year old daughters, along with my 2 year old son, really enjoy getting outside for fresh air and play, so taking a few moments out to examine birds or flowers & trees isn't too difficult.  Of course, this easily gets forgotten and set aside without a plan, so I tend to follow the plans that I find at the Handbook for Nature Study

At this site, Barb posts weekly challenges to go study, and they tend to go along with the time of the year.  We don't do much of it during the winter months, but we work hard at making time for it the rest of the year.  There are a variety of challenges that a student can choose to do, and many have free downloads or printouts.  A major tool that goes along with nature study is the book, Handbook for Nature Study, a rather thick book that is chock full of information and lessons to go with your specific study.  You can buy this from bookstores like Amazon, or you can download it for free right now from the Homeschool Freebie.  There are 6 parts to the download, so make sure you get every part.

While nature study sounds nice and maybe even fun, you may wonder why bother?  I mean, is there enough learning going on here to totally skip doing other science?  I suppose that's really up to you and what you're looking for in elementary science.  I choose to follow a curriculum during the winter months, because it's cold and snowy in Michigan.  But here's why I choose to incorporate it the rest of the year.  

I believe that in giving our children "regular opportunities to get in touch with God's creation, a habit is formed which will be a source of delight throughout their lives."  (A Charlotte Mason Companion, p. 253)

Children need to be taught to observe carefully the world around them, and a way we do this is by creating a nature notebook, where the girls draw or color pictures of what we've been observing.  They also add a few notes, such as where and when the item was observed, and maybe a few sentences about it.

As we studied violets outdoors in our yard, I brought out our Handbook for Nature Study and read a few things about violets.  The book contained far more than was appropriate to teach to a 1st grade and younger, such as petioles and stipules (meaning, Mama didn't know what those were yet), but we did discuss how the violets were shaped, how many petals there were, what color the center of the flower was, and the leading lines into the center where the nectar is.

I took pictures of the violets so we could continue the study indoors, and Hannah picked a few and made this bouquet that fit into a curled piece of bark.  I thought it was quite creative and pretty!  She also picked a few so we could try pressing some flowers.

A few days after this, we got out our watercolor paints and first sketched and then painted the violets.  For Makenna, 5, this was the first time she sketched out a picture before painting.  She decided to include a variety of colors, so we came up with bluebells, poppies and snapdragons to go along with her violets.

Hannah was more careful in her approach.  She made sure that the violet in her sketch contained the 5 petals that she observed.

Hannah, age 7

Makenna, age 5

Another reason that I like Nature Study is that it incorporates art into our schooling.  The girls love to do art, and I easily skip over it, maybe allowing them to do it on their own if I'm up to the mess.  Making this a part of our day makes it so much more enjoyable, and the girls are excited to explore the world of art.

Nature Study: Robins

Robins are always one of the first signs of spring around here, and they are so easy to identify...I remember learning all about them in 4th grade Michigan History study, as they are our state bird.  This year, our yard seems to have invited many of them to come and stay a while.  I only hope they don't eat all my strawberries again!


I planned on having some time to watch the robins this afternoon when it warmed up and the other bookwork was done, but I forgot that they are more plentiful in the morning and evening!  We'll have to continue our bird watching at the appropriate time.

 This is one of the few we saw at lunchtime, and this was as close as I could get to it.  I wish we could see the white circle around its eyes and the white belly patch that we read about.

We read about the robin and watched a few YouTube clips about the robin.  After spending some time outside trying to find them, we came inside and Hannah drew a picture of a robin.  She used a bird drawing book to help, but no tracing on this one!  My aim is to develop her artistic eye and train her to be attentive to details and practice observation skills.  Whether or not a child is a very good drawer, learning to draw and observe an object allows her to see details that she would have missed, thereby becoming much more intimately involved with what she is studying.

On the first day of spring this year, it actually looked like spring!  We had daffodils and everything!

For Passover this year, I bought this set you see here from Dayspring.  I never celebrated Passover before, and I led our ladies Sunday School class through a Seder meal.  This set includes the cup, the plate and 2 candle holders.  Hannah decided that she wanted to paint the cup, and she got this all set up to sketch out the cup.  I think it turned out rather interesting.

Garden Harvest 2011

We planted, watered & nurtured our garden all summer long, praying and hoping there would be a reward for our labors.  We thank Jesus that we had an abundance of tomatoes and peppers, which I've been canning large batches weekly for the past 3 weeks.  Currently, I have a picnic table loaded down with green ones.  We'll see what becomes of them.  I have a recipe for green tomato and apple relish.

We planted giant sunflowers at the ends of each of our garden rows.  I would like to get a smaller variety that can actually support its own head!  These are pretty, and we'll be saving some seeds for planting again next year.  I should also save some for eating or even bird-seed.

Makenna & the Giant Sunflowers

Since I had so many green beans last year, I didn't plant any regular plants, but we did create a Teepee and planted climbing white beans and scarlet runner beans on it.  I forgot to pick the beans, though, and they got too big and tough to eat.  We'll save some for seeds next year.  The scarlet runner beans climbed and had red blooms, but I can't tell if any actually grew beans.  I think the pods would look different.  I got the seeds from my sister-in-law.

The TeePee for climbing beans

I planted these zinnias at the front of a row in the garden, and I was surprised at how well they grew.  I knew they would like it here, but the blooms have been out for a couple months, and they're so bright and long lasting!  I'll plant more next year, for sure.  I saved seeds from these by stripping the dead heads and placing in a bag.  I left the bag open to air out and dry--hope they don't get moldy and they dry out quickly.  Both girls helped me gather the seeds and we got quite a collection.

Bright Multi-colored Zinnias

These flowers are still blossoming and growing in my yard.  I scattered a seed variety packet this spring, and these yellow flowers were a part of it, I think.  They look like a black-eyed Susan/daisy type.  The second flower here is a Glad.  I planted many bulbs in my front yard and got quite a variety of colors.  So pretty!

Gladiolas

The Butterfly Bush is on its second year, and did well.  They really do attract butterflies!  The second flower was from the variety seed packet, and I have no idea what it is, but it's so pretty and delicate.

Butterfly Bush and Pink Flower

This is what my son does when we're out to the garden.  Our garden is past our backyard and across the ally-way.  The previous owners of our house also own the vacant property across the ally and they are friends from church and still neighbors, so they allow us to garden on their property (no shade here, so perfect for a garden).  Anyway, Maverick likes to lay in dirt piles, drive his trucks through dirt and just plain get dirty!

Maverick

We also planted a few types of potatoes and the girls think it's so much fun to help Daddy dig them up! We did have a potato bug problem this year, worse than last year, and so we didn't get quite as many potatoes this year.  These tall plants you can see here by Tim are Jerusalem Artichokes.  They grow like a potato and I guess you cook them up like a potato, even though they're gnarly like a ginger root.  I've never had them, but I thought they'd be fun to try.  We'll dig them up after the first frost.  We also planted sweet potatoes, which will be dug up soon, too.

Digging up Potatoes

Cosmos

I planted Cosmos once, I think, and they've been re-seeding themselves the past few years.  This year, I decided to collect seeds from the dead-heads and hope to have more of these bright, sweet, tall flowers.

Hannah is doing her nature study notebook.  Most of the time we're so busy out in the garden picking and weeding and eating that she doesn't do much drawing, but I think the sketching is good practice for her.  It trains her eyes to look at the details of an item and spend more time inspecting it instead of just racing to the next thing.  She's studying the Milkweed here.  We read a bit about it in our Handbook of Nature book and learned that it's called Milkweed because it seems to "bleed milk" when the skin is damaged in an attempt to heal itself.  When we broke it open, it did indeed seem to bleed milk!

September Nature Study

We have been having a great time as a family digging into God's nature at various times of the year!  This month, we took special note of goldenrod, thistles, Queen Anne's Lace and more!  While we were driving to Nana & Papa's house (to do more canning), we stopped along the way to pick flowers!  What a beautiful bouquet!  We are following some Nature Study this month as suggested by Handbook of Nature Study.

We noticed all the tiny details of this goldenrod, how the flowers look like stars all lined up in a row.

We looked at the milkweed a little here, and then observed it more later when we could open up the seed pods.  For weeds, aren't these all glorious?  

Here's the Queen Anne's Lace, all opened up and then all closed up.

There was even an old apple tree right here.  The girls tried a bite of apple, but it was a bit sour.

Even a nasty thistle can look {slightly} pretty!  We didn't try to touch this one!  The girls are still quite fascinated with the cattail, pointing out all the places we stopped to look for them this spring and fall.  They think it would be fun to try to eat the edible root.  I haven't gotten that brave yet...

Last weekend, Daddy wanted to go check out his duck hunting spot.  So we all took a walk out to the lake, called Horseshoe Lake. On the way, we saw this dragonfly.  There were many of them.  And we even spotted this little frog.

Here's a shot of the lake.  You can see it's surrounded by brush and has all kinds of lily pads and growth on the top.  It's very shallow, and out in the middle you can see that bottom is showing.  Tim and his friend might set up a blind out there.

Here's our first glimpse of the lake.  Maverick walked quite a ways to start with, but then was ready for the backpack.  The girls did pretty good until we got to a spot with a lot of scratchy growth.

I'm not sure what kind of mushroom this is, but I've never see a red one before!

Our last find of the day was this little snapper!  The kids really got a kick out of seeing this little guy.

http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com

The Pond Outdoor Hour Study

I've been a reader of Handbook Of Nature Study for over a year now, and have wanted to participate, but don't usually have the study documented enough to post anything about.  Science is a favorite of my girls, ages 6 & 4, because they like experiments and hands on learning.  (I, on the other hand, think it's a lot more work!)

Living here in Michigan, we're never far from water, so doing a pond study sounded interesting and do-able.  We could chose to study cattails, frogs, water-fowl or dragonflies this month at the pond.  We hunted for cattails earlier this spring, and found few because it was too early, but we've seen so many since, so I knew this was a good place to start.

We headed a few miles down the road to Round Lake, which I've driven past but never stopped.  It has a township public access, so we bumped along down the 2-track to the end where the boat launch was.  The girls were very excited, and grabbed their glass jars to collect specimens on their race to the edge.  I put 21 month Maverick in the stroller (very unsuitable for rough terrain) and we inspected the water's edge.  We saw Lily-pads along the edges of the lake and plenty of cattails.  We opened one up and checked out the seeds growing inside and compared it in memory to the one from the springtime that was leftover from last fall.  We discussed where they grew and where we could find them.

Barb, from the Nature Study blog, cautioned parents to keep an eye on children, and I spent a great majority of my time keeping Maverick out of the water!  We read a little bit in our book, Handbook of Nature Study, given to us by another homeschool friend.  This has become a great book, and it goes hand in hand with the Nature Study blog.  Makenna couldn't wait to take off her sandals and wade a little bit here.

After this, we went to another location to study pond life.  Over by a channel into Lake Michigan, there is a little picnic area and a bridge with some paths.  We walked along this area, but again, doing this with a toddler along is a little crazy!  He enjoyed the study, and big sister Hannah saw a big fish, which she was very excited about!  She drew these pictures:

Lily Pad with Flower

The fish she saw in the water

There's a really cool old book that's been put on-line for free viewing.  It's all about how to draw creatures, and Hannah followed the instructions to get this fish.  She was always frustrated about drawing fish, and this was her first try following these directions.  I was impressed at how well it turned out!