One Small Square: Take Two

Join us as we study nature using The Outdoor Hour Challenges. This year Ryne and Grace are joining with friends Cameron and Avery to explore this beautiful world God made. Moms, Kellie and Casey, are enjoying the adventure as much as the kids.

I can't believe I haven't written about our nature study since early November! There are a variety of reasons: field trips, other outings, holidays, illness, blogging break, etc. We did manage to get in some nature hikes, but you could tell we definitely got out of the routine. When we went out for the Backyard Bird Count, none of our kids really seemed that engaged. So this time I decided to go back to one of our favorite nature activities from last year: One Small Square. We even added a bit of competition.

Boys vs. Girls:

Who can find the most things in their 18" x 18" square?

The girls picked a nice flat spot next to a log.

The boys would never dream of making my life that easy. They picked a muddy spot right next to the creek. I have to admit though, at first glance it looked pretty interesting.

Next, the kids made a list of what they found on the surface of their squares and drew a few pictures.

Then it was time to start digging.

The girls had fun playing with the worms they found. In case you're wondering, the girls found half of a spaghetti squash I threw in the woods months ago, so it became a worm house. I do normally put my food scraps in compost buckets, but sometimes if they are full I just throw stuff in the woods. It usually gets eaten up pretty quick, but I guess the squash wasn't popular.

Everyone finished up their lists and counted up the results.

Here is the list of what the girls found in their square:

Here is the list of what the boys found in their square:

I was amazed how many more things the kids found this year than we did last year. And I was impressed with the variety of objects the two teams found, even though their squares were only about 10 feet apart. I'm sending a cyber hug to fellow mom, Casey, for discovering the grossest item on the girls' list. I'm not going to argue with Cameron about whether water and water table should be counted as separate items (or mud and dirt, for that matter). He was so excited to tell me all about the water table!

When we declared the boys winners, I had a brief moment of panic -- I didn't have a prize for the winners! However, the beauty of it all is that the contest helped motivate them to get excited about nature study again, but the actual experience proved to be the reward. The boys didn't ask about prizes and the girls didn't seem upset that they lost.

They just went off to play with their worms.

Go here to see what others found in their small squares.

OHC: Apples

Join us as we study nature using The Outdoor Hour Challenges. This year Ryne and Grace are joining with friends Cameron and Avery to explore this beautiful world God made. Moms, Kellie and Casey, are enjoying the adventure as much as the kids.

I'm a couple of weeks behind in posting our nature studies, but on October 22 the kids had an indoor nature study on apples. I bought 10 different varieties of apples for them to examine, compare, sketch, and taste. It's amazing how different apples can be!

I thought the kids did a great job noticing some subtle differences and really brought out those differences in their sketches. Everyone was fascinated by the bumpy texture of the Sweet Tango.

They each picked two apples to focus on for their notebook pages. Ryne chose the Gala and the Sweet Tango. Cameron chose the Granny Smith and the Honey Crisp. Avery chose the Jonathan and Red Delicious. Grace chose the Granny Smith and the Cortland.

And then it was time for the best part -- tasting the apples!

Ryne had one of the best lines of the day when describing the Sweet Tango: "Sour, with a touch of tang on the finish."

Because it was such a beautiful day (we've been blessed with wonderful weather for Friday School days so far), we decided to talk a walk in the woods.

Overall, nature study is going well this fall. We're all out of order on Barb's challenges and we've had to skip a few, but isn't flexibility one of the best things about homeschooling? It can sometimes be difficult keeping the attention of four kids and I often wish I could be a better guide, but I am encouraged by the observations I see them all making and the fun they are having.

OHC: Wild Goose Chase

Join us as we study nature using The Outdoor Hour Challenges. This year Ryne and Grace are joining with friends Cameron and Avery to explore this beautiful world God made. Moms, Kellie and Casey, are enjoying the adventure as much as the kids.

If you have been following our nature study adventures you will recall that two weeks in a row we failed to find geese to observe. Casey came to the rescue when she remembered seeing geese at a city park, so last week we took our nature study on the road again. We've decided that while we have this gorgeous fall weather we're going to take advantage of it, so we did another picnic. After lunch we started walking a trail that loops around a lake. As we emerged from the woods to our first lake view, we were excited to finally see the geese...

on the other side of the lake.

No problem, we'll just walk around the lake. As we made our way along the lake we spotted a blue heron. He kept flying off, and I didn't have my good camera that day, so I have no good pictures to share. Then we started noticing something really yucky -- lots of huge, dead fish. We were surprised to see fish that big in a relatively small lake. We couldn't imagine what caused all these fish to die, but after a little investigating I located the answer. In late September the area had a powerful hailstorm, with hailstones up to 5.5 inches in diameter. Apparently the hail could have caused a sudden enough drop in the lake temperature to kill the fish. Or another explanation conservation officials suggested was that the cold hail and rain caused the lake to "turn over" which can kill the fish. Several geese in the area were also killed, but thankfully they were removed right away. I will spare you the dead fish pictures.

Now it was getting hot -- really hot. That morning it was cool so we dressed the kids in long pants and short-sleeve shirts. But now it was 1:00 and we were all boiling. Kids were getting grumpy. "Be patient, we're almost to the geese!" Or not. The bridge crossing a creek had collapsed (or at least looked like it) and was blocked off. There was no way to get around the lake, except go back the way we came. At that point, Casey and I were ready to give up on geese forever, but we still had to get back to the car. One redeeming highlight was that on the way back we spotted some turtles sunning on the submerged tree where we had previously seen the heron. They jumped in the water almost immediately so our pictures are the only view some of the kids will get of the turtles. We finally made it back to our starting point and decided to just take the car around the rest of the way to where the geese were resting since the road passed that side of the lake. You could tell however, the kids were being pushed past their limit.

They revived briefly when we finally reached the geese!!! Canada Geese (I don't think I've ever seen any other kind). At least two dozen of them. Bonus -- three ducks were also among the crowd (the challenge included an activity for comparing geese to ducks)! There was a male and female pair of Mallard ducks that stuck close together. The third I had trouble identifying, until I found out there are many domestic ducks living in the wild, especially at city parks like we were at. Hey, I never claimed to know a lot about nature -- I'm learning right along with the kids!

The kids were able to walk up pretty close to the geese, who were mostly resting in a muddy area by the lake. The ducks stayed in the water the entire time. The white duck usually had his head half-submerged in the mucky water. A couple of the kids did quick sketches, but mostly we just observed. Instead of having them fill out the Venn diagram comparing geese and ducks, I just had them orally tell me the differences they were noticing. Here's what they observed:

One fun moment was seeing a couple of the geese fight. What a racket! One finally had enough and flew away. Pretty soon several of them flew away. The kids thought that was pretty neat, and "encouraged" the rest to fly away too. Is it okay to admit that our kids (mostly my son) chased the remaining geese away?

Despite the difficulties we encountered, it was a great nature study and I learned even more just writing this post, which I'm excited to share with the kids. We weren't able to meet for Friday School today because both our families have been sick this week. But next week, Lord willing, we will have something new to explore. We're done goose chasing for now!

OHC: Snakes

Join us as we study nature using The Outdoor Hour Challenges. This year Ryne and Grace are joining with friends Cameron and Avery to explore this beautiful world God made. Moms, Kellie and Casey, are enjoying the adventure as much as the kids.
This is the story of four kids, a snake, and two chickens. But no geese.
It was our second attempt to do OHC #2: Geese, but we weren't really sure where to go about looking for them. The weather forecast indicated it was going to be a perfect day, so we decided to take our nature study on the road and go for a picnic. Our quaint little suburb has a nature sanctuary that, embarrassingly, neither of our families had ever visited. Who knows, maybe we'd find some geese there.
We were stunned. The nature sanctuary is amazing. It's been nine years since we moved into the Blue House -- how is that we're just now discovering this treasure?

Even more amazing: My son, the reluctant nature journalist, was the first to ask for his clipboard.

And this is where my camera batteries died. But Casey came to the rescue with the next three amazing pictures. Thanks, Casey!

The kids were much more observant than the moms. They noticed all the really neat things first. Maybe it's because we're so busy watching the kids. I think it was Cameron who spotted the praying mantis.

However, Avery was the one who made the big find for the day. Do you see it? My camera found one last gasp of battery life to take the next group of pictures before dying again.

It kind of creeps me out that any normal bush or small tree could be hiding one of these.

Avery actually first spotted the snake on the trail, but he quickly shot into the tree and slithered from branch to branch.

We spent at least 15 minutes watching our scaly friend. Absolutely incredible.

It's either a Smooth Green Snake or a Rough Green Snake. I can't tell the difference in comparing dozens of internet pictures to my picture. In our part of the state, it should be the Smooth Green Snake, but the state publication also said they haven't been spotted for years due to habitat destruction.

So what about the two chickens? That would be the two moms. We were too nervous to let the kids touch the snake. I think Ryne would have touched it if I had let him. Now I feel bad, because when I looked at the first two entries from the spring snake challenge there were pictures of kids holding snakes. And then there was this entry that really made me feel like the biggest chicken in the world. Now that's a brave mom!

Chicken or not, we had an incredible day. Next week we're going goose hunting.

OHC: Signs of Autumn

Join us as we study nature using The Outdoor Hour Challenges. This year Ryne and Grace are joining with friends Cameron and Avery to explore this beautiful world God made. Moms, Kellie and Casey, are enjoying the adventure as much as the kids.

I'm a little behind on posting this challenge! Two Fridays ago we were scheduled to do OHC #2 - Geese, but the geese did not cooperate. There is a small lake in our neighborhood that attracts lots of geese, but I guess it's too early for their arrival. So we decided to do the extra challenge Barb posted that week: Signs of Autumn. We limited our search to the front and side yards, but still found quite a few hints of my favorite season.

The first clue was the cooler temperature that day. The sky was so blue. It was a perfect day!

When we my husband and I lived in downtown Chicago, he said you could always tell it was fall when the ivy turned red on the outfield wall of Wrigley Field. But I like it even better when the red vine is crawling through a green tree, with a bright blue sky in the background.

If I hadn't started doing these challenges last fall, I still wouldn't know what this lovely yellow plant is called. Thank you, Barb, for teaching me about goldenrod. I notice it everywhere along the highways, but this is the first time I've seen it in our woods. I hope we get even more next year.

One walnut tree in the front was almost bare except for this pair of walnuts. They were so big that I wasn't sure they were walnuts (plus I thought all our walnut trees were in the back), so I hammered one open for the kids to examine (some even tasted). They are not easy to open and, two weeks later, my hands are still stained! We have walnuts all over our property, but we rarely use them for anything besides using them for golf practice, hitting them into the woods behind our house. : )

All but a few acorns had fallen to the ground.

I don't know if this is a sign of fall, but one of the kids found this neat fungus growing on the willow tree.

And here is another sign of autumn: children sitting at desks. It seems like just yesterday we were spending our days at the pool, and now we're already done with a month of school! The girls were finishing up their notebooking pages.

We had a great time welcoming the new season.

OHC Autumn Series #1: Nature Journal

The new school year is underway, and it's time to start up our Outdoor Hour Challenges again! We spent plenty of time doing informal nature study over the summer, but I'm ready for some structure again.

An exciting development at Blue House Academy is the addition of what my kids call "Friday School." My friend, Casey, and her two children, Cameron and Avery, will be meeting with us for a mini co-op. Our mornings will include art, math or other games, and nature study. We are all looking forward to the fellowship and I'm looking forward to the accountability. It is so easy to put off those subjects, so hopefully this will help me be more consistent with our nature study this year.

The kids enjoyed decorating cardboard boxes in the style of Piet Mondrian and Frank Stella. Thanks, Casey, for a great lesson and activity!

Next was a short math game, and then nature study. This week's Outdoor Hour Challenge topic was the nature journal. Anna Botford Comstock says in her Handbook of Nature Study, "[The field notebook] is a friendly gate which admits the teacher to a knowledge of what the child sees and cares for." It is not to be corrected like a grammar or spelling assignment, nor is it to be forced upon the child. So we began our nature time by just talking about how it might be fun to keep a record of our adventures. I showed them a few pages from Keeping a Nature Journal, explaining that even adults can keep nature journals -- so it's not just a "school thing." I think for the purposes of our little group we'll stick with notebooking pages that they will keep in a folder, but both of my kids have little spiral notebooks that we also use for nature study. I also won this neat nature journal from my friend Dawn's blog and am eager to start using it. Finally, we'll also be using Beginning Birdwatcher's Book with 48 Stickers to go along with Apologia's Zoology I. There are so many neat materials these days to help us journal!

Then we headed outside to the front yard. There was no particular plan other than to just to look around and see what looked interesting.

There was some debate on the differences between mushroom and toadstools. I told the kids I would do some research on the topic and report back. I thought this explanation from the Australian website FungiBank was helpful.

The terms ‘mushroom’ and ‘toadstool’ are subjective rather than strictly scientific, and therefore are open to a range of loose interpretations. In general, fungi with fruit bodies that have a cap more or less centrally placed on top of a stem are referred to as ‘mushrooms’, or as ‘mushrooms and toadstools’. Some people broadly consider that all fungi with a cap and stem are ‘mushrooms’, while others consider only edible fungi as ‘mushrooms’. In the strictest sense, the word ‘mushroom’ refers only to members of the genus Agaricus, e.g. the cultivated white button mushroom. ‘Toadstool’ is typically applied to any fungus with a cap and stem that appears different from Agaricus, regardless of its edibility, or more usually if it is suspected or known to be poisonous. In a broader sense, ‘toadstools’ also includes other non-mushroom forms of fungi such as puffballs, earthstars, and coral fungi.

I'm not going to be nitpicky about what word they use, but it was a good opportunity to expand on something that interested them. We'll discuss it more next week.

While they were debating mushrooms and toadstools, I almost walked into this lovely web. This time of year it's more surprising that I didn't walk into a web on our nature outing!

Grace enjoyed showing everyone the pears that don't really look like pears.

Lovely...

Ummm... not so lovely. The girls were crying for us to save the butterfly (it was frantically flapping around while the spider did its work), while the boys just said, "COOL!!!!"

We found an empty bird nest in a tree surrounded by some sort of wild grapes. I clipped an article a couple of years ago that gave the name of these grapes, but now I can't find it. Apparently a local chef uses them in his upscale restaurant. I've googled, but cannot figure out what they are.

After our outdoor time we went inside, carrying handfuls of flowers, pears, grapes, moss, and whatever else we found. The kids all completed a notebook page, although the girls seemed much more interested than the boys. I would love some ideas for getting boys more interested in journaling! I followed Comstock's directions and did not correct backward b's or other mistakes.

Our nature study is off to a great start, and we've decided it definitely is more fun with friends!