Outdoor Hour Challenge #45 Squirrels

We began this challenge by watching the videos that Barb had linked the the callenge, which we enjoyed immensely! It was so much fun to watch the squirrels. We then read about squirrels in our animal encyclopedia and headed out for our walk.

I would love to show you a picture of the squirrel we found, but it appears that none live in our city. So we decided that we would just have to go on memory. Before we moved, we used to sit and watch a squirrel try everything it possibly could to get into our bird feeder. It never suceeded, but it was fun to watch!

Anyways, we listened to Chapter 5 of the Burgess Animal Book from Librovox while filling out a page for our journals. Princess enjoyed the story and here's a look at her journal.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #44-Rabbits

We are back with the outdoor hour challenges and today's went well. I never really thought I would have to do nature study in an urban environment. We have always lived in the country or very near to it. Now living in the big city overseas I'm starting to understand that urban nature study requires that you take advantage of all the reasources availble! So we began our study by going over some facts from the Handbook of Nature Study. We then watched these two videos on you-tube to observe rabbits in the wild and baby rabbits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbfrBq5WCOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cv14BYah4o&feature=channel

Finally princess drew rabbit tracks in her nature journal and colored a picture of a rabbit to go with it. We talked about what she had learned and put some of that in her journal. Here's a picture of the page we made.

Not exactly a walk in the woods looking for nature, but we did walk to lunch afterwards. Seriously, although our nature study is taking on a new form, she is still learning about nature and that's the whole point anyways.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #42-Moss and Lichens

We live in a realtively moist climate, so I thought that moss would be relatively easy to find. The truth is that moss doesn't like pollution anymore than humans do! We had a bit of a challenge finding some and completely struck out on the lichens. We walked around for 25 minutes before stopping to find this specimen of moss.

We got out our magnifying glass and examined it. We also collected a nearby rock with some moss growing on it, so we could examine it closer at home. On our way home, we stopped by the potato lady so we could get the energy to climb our sixth flights of stairs (besides, what's nature study without a snack). They were yummy!

Once back at our building I happened to notice that one of the pots by our entrance had some very lovely moss in it (guess I should have checked that)...

We climbed the stairs and went inside to our school table. We talked about the life cycle of moss and pulled out our sample. We were able to identify some grean threads and some moss plants on it. We then wrote in our journals...

Another successful nature study,thanks Barb!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #41-Mushroom Focus

We are back to doing our weekly nature study! This challenge was for ferns and mushroom, we chose to focus on mushrooms. The challenge was to go out in the forest and see what you find. Since there is no forest nearby in our new home, we decided to seek out mushrooms at our local market. It's a five minute walk from our place and it's outside, that counts as nature study, right? Here's what we found...

We bought alittle of each variety to take home for further study. Once we got home, we talked about the different shapes and identified the parts we could. We talked about how and where mushrooms grow. Then we cut a few up to see what they looked like inside. Here's a look at our variety...

We then took some time to make entries into our journals and try our hand at watercolor painting. Here's a look at the journal entries...

I'm pleased that we were able to complete this challenge in our new urban environment. I know that it will take some effort on my part to rework some of the challenges that Barb has provided, but I know that it's worth it. Nature study has been such a wonderful addition to our week and I plan to continue it, no matter where we live.

Outdoor Hour Challenge: Holly

This was not a planned challenge by Barb, but I thought I would still call it an outdoor hour challenge, since without Barb's plans I probably would not have struck out on my own. We are having cold weather here and given that it's so close to Christmas, I thought we would study the holly bush outside our window...

I began by reading what this site had to say about holly to give myself some background knowledge about the plant. We went outside and began with examining the bark, which was greyish and peeling a bit. We then decided it was too cold and plucked off a few leaves and berries to examine indoors. Here's a close-up...

One inside we examined the pointy part of the leaf, the waxy coating and the berries. We talked about why the leaves had the waxy coating and about how holly was an evergreen. After looking at the leaves, I'm not exactly sure what variety of holly this bush is. But our landlord said it was holly(he should know because he planted it) and it does have all the characteristics (except multiple points on the leaves). So that's what we are going with until someone tells me different!We also cut up a berry and noted that it smelled alittle like an apple. Here's our nature journal entries...

We had fun doing this study despite the cold weather. I wasn't sure how winter nature study would work, but there is so much out there to discover that I'm sure we will have plenty to see. Plus a brisk walk in the cold really wakes you up!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #40-Fall Weather

This challenge was a seasonal weather study where we also focused on temperature and pressure. We began our time with a look at our temperature guage (today was quite a bit warmer than it has been)...

We discussed Celcius and Farenheit and what makes the red liquid move in the tube. Then we went for a walk. We found these clouds in the sky...

It was the perfect opportunity to review the types of clouds and how they are formed. As we continued our walk I brought up pressure and how it effects our weather. We talked about what high and low pressure means. Princess was excited because now the weather man will make more sense! Once we were inside we completed Barb's seasonal weather sheet. Here what we did...

I'm always surprised at the different things that princess notices that I don't. She was sure to include a bird and an airplane in her picture because they were there when she looked out the window. Hope you are able to take a minute this week to go outside and enjoy the fall weather!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #39

This challenge was about fall weather. Yesterday we happened to have alot of wind, then lots of clouds and then snow showers later in the evening, allgreat fall weather to observe!. This morning I woke up to about an inch of snow, not much, but it still seems early to have this amount of snow!

Back to the nature study, I ended up purchasing Hearts and Trees Weather Lapbook and I was very pleased that I did. Princess and I enjoyed putting it together yesterday. I would like to mention that this is my first lapbook, ever. The kit was easy for me to use, except one part which princess easily figured out. There's nothing like being shown up by your 6yo! We discussed all topics that were presented and filled in what we could. Here's what the lapbook looked like...

We made a prediction of what the weather would be outside, put on our coats and headed outside. We happened to have an outdoor thermometer, so princess recorded that. Then, we went for a short walk, it was really cold! We observed the clouds and then headed back inside. I forgot to take the camera and it was too cold to go back out, so no pictures, sorry! Once we were back inside we filled in our observations in our weather lapbook.

Later that night after princess had gone to bed, we looked outside and saw snow. Since I am such a good mom and nature study is so important to me, I woke princess up. Here she is outside in her pj's and a jacket in the snow. I love homeschooling!

Our plan today is to continue our fall weather nature study with a snowball fight, don't be fooled serious scientific research will be done :-)!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #38-Chesnut Tree

We did our nature study last Friday, but I'm just not getting around to writing it up. We were lucky enough to have a real chesnut tree close by our apartment!


A real treat for around here because most of them have been affected by chesnut blight, a disease which affects the bark. Princess and I discussed the disease and what it meant for the chesnut population. Unfortunately from the looks of it, this tree may not last much longer.


We had already looked at the seed pods and seeds earlier in the year. We even ate some that had been roasted in the oven one night! But this week, we were only able to study the remnants of the seed pods and seeds.


We also did bark and leaf rubbings of the tree. We discussed how the leaves looked alot like the leaves of a chesnut oak. Then we headed instead to complete our journal entries.

I'm so glad that we had a chance to complete this nature study. Please check out this study and others at Barb's Handbook for Nature blog. It's been a great experience for us and I'm sure that you will enjoy all she has to offer there!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #37

This outdoor hour challenge was on spruces. We happen to have a very tall blue spruce at the church just across the street from us. On our way over there, we talked about conifers and pines, which we studied about a month ago. I was surprised and pleased with how much princess remembered. Here's what our tree looked like...

We observed the general shape of the tree and the fact that the branches slopped downward, almost touching the ground. Princess tried to get in to do a bark rubbing, but the branches were so close, she couldn't get to the trunk. We decided that this was to help keep the tree warm in the witner. We also picked a few needles and talked about their shape. I wanted to have princess observe the cones close up still on the tree, but the only ones left on the tree were on the highest branches. So we picked one up off the ground. Once as home we put the cone in water to see if it would close up. This is the cone before the water...

This is the cone after being in the water for 20 min...

Pretty cool huh? At home, we entered our finds into our nature journal and also wrote a few observations. Here they are...

Once again, we enjoyed our nature study. I'm really glad that we have added this to our week!

Outdoor Hour Challengs #35

I'm just getting to post this even though we did our nature study yesterday. I feel like our live is going along at Mach 20. I do appreciate taking the time to slow down each week and study nature, thanks again Barb for giving our time purpose! This week we studied apple trees. Although we don't have one near our building, there is one on our daily walk. So, we stood on the sidewalk and talked about the shape of apple trees and how they are shorter than other trees. We also looked at the bark and discussed how it was gray and smooth. Here's the tree we looked at...

I was bad and plucked a leaf from the tree so that we could examine it and then take it home and do a leaf rubbing. We also picked up two apples from the ground so that we could do a closer examination. I'm hoping the neighbors understand, they weren't home for me to ask! So now you all know that I'm not perfect :-). Here's a picture of the apples on the ground...

Once we got home, we cut the apple in half vertically and transversely and examined the differences. We talked about the carpels (seed chambers) and counted the number of seeds in them. Then we tried to do an apple print, but it didn't really turn out as planned. Anyways, here's our nature journal entries...
Hope you've had time this week to get out and enjoy nature!

Outdoor Hour challenge #34

We got right on this challenge since most of the maples in this area are changing colors and losing their leaves, plus it was a really nice day out yesterday. We had no problem finding maples as they are all over town (a fact I found out last week when looking for oaks!). Most of the maples in this area are silver or black maples. We laid under a maple that had lost most of it's leaves and talked about how many branches there was and how this was the reason that maples are known as great shade trees. We then chose a maple with it's leaves still on to do our study.

We look closely at the leaves and then did a leaf rubbing.

We also examined the seeds, which are called keys. We talked about why the wings are beneficial for the seed. We did a bark rubbing and princess drew the tree.

Then we went inside and worked on our nature notebooks.

We have loved doing our nature study once a week. If you want to include this in your day, but your not sure how, please check out Barb's blog. It's where I get my plans for nature study and ideas on how to do nature study in general.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #33

First of all for extra credit, we have an Oak Lane and a community named Maple Leaf.

Now that out of the way, our attempted study of oaks. I had always thought that our area had equal number of oaks and maples, I was sorely mistaken! We actually had a hard time finding multiple oaks to look at. In the end I was able to find several oaks in the white oak family and one in the black oak family. Princess easily picked up how to tell the difference between the two and for that I am grateful. Here's some of the acorns we collected, the top left one is from a black oak and it's already sprouted, princess thought that was really cool!

We ended up sitting down studying this bur oak tree...

We noted how the branches weren't all straight like a pine and how the light filtered through the tree. We also determined that the bur oak is part of the white oak family. We did bark and leaf rubbings for our nature journals. Here's what we did...

On the way back we ran across a public garden in which princess insisted on drawing several of the flowers. At first I wanted to say no because we still needed to find a few more oaks, right? But then I realized that the whole point is to get her interested in nature and if she wants to stop and draw flowers, it's ok! We don't have to study every oak in town. Thanks again Barb for giving me a framework for nature study and the freedom to let my daughter explore her interest in nature! Looking forward to next week!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #32

We did manage to take a walk yesterday and we talked about the pines in our neighborhood. I hope to get over to campus later on this week to take pictures and study pine trees for our tree book. We talked about the pine tree we saw and pointed it's central stem, whorls and the leader. Princess go a real kick out of pointing out the leaders! We did find one tree with a split in the trunk and now it had three central stems. We talked about how this tree had been damaged at one point and that's why it looked that way. What a great teaching opportunity! Thanks Barb for giving us the pages in the Handbook of Nature to prepare or I never would have known how to answer her question about that tree! I forgot my camera on our walk, so we had to go back to get the picture of this tree, a Virginia Pine.

We took samples of the needles and a pine cone from this tree. Once we got home, we cut the needles and examined them. We also took apart our pine cone. All the seeds were gone, but we could see the pockets where they went. Here are our nature journal entries.