Summer Fun ~ A Nature Walk in the Woods

We are blessed to live very near a beautiful state park that is full of hiking trails…and we never seem to make time to take advantage of this blessing.

But this weekend we made the time…

The temperature reading at our house was in the mid to upper 90’s, it was at least 10 degrees cooler in the park .

After checking out the visitor’s center {which had some really great displays},  we headed up to a short trail that would lead to a vista of our town.

When we got to the beginning of the trail, we discovered a humongous rock that had beautiful specimens of what we had just been studying in our science book {Exploring Creation with Botany}.

The kiddos found some wonderful samples of moss growing on the ground.

And a bunch of lichens all over the rock formation.

As we headed up the trail we noticed bunches of ferns growing next to the trail.

And even some small clumps of wild raspberries.

After a half mile of walking we reached the vista area where we were able to overlook our small town.

And we found even more lichens growing on the rocks up there…and these lichens were greener {our book taught us that the greener the lichen, the cleaner the air}.

Of course, I had the kiddos stop and pose by the trail sign…and then we headed back down the trail.

On the way down, we spotted a number of trees that sported woodpecker holes…

And ds9 spotted a tree with a fungus growing on it {we saw a sample of this particular fungus at the visitor’s center}.

We finished our afternoon with a trip to a nearby playground area, known as “the tire park”. 

This playground is one of our kiddos’ favorites mostly because it is so unique.  Instead of wood chip mulch, the mulch is made of recycled tires {which is much softer to fall on}.  There’s also a couple of really cool tire swings,

a zip line,

and much more…

I told dh that we definitely have to plan more hikes and take advantage of the beautiful parks that we have in our area.

Harvest Time Fun

This past weekend, we were invited to a “cider-pressing party” at the home of some family friends.  In addition to pressing apple cider, the kiddos also made butter, cracked pecan shells, participated in an apple and pumpkin hunt, and had a ton of fun!

After working hard to press cider…the kiddos got to enjoy some of the fruits of their hard labor…a cup of fresh, cold, cider ~ yummy!

Praying Mantis

Praying Mantis

by Mary Ann Hoberman

That praying mantis over there

is really not engaged in prayer.

That praying mantis that you see

Is really preying (with an e).

It preys upon the garter snake.

It preys upon the bumblebee.

It preys upon the cabbage worm,

The wasp, the fly, the moth, the flea.

(And sometimes, if  its need is great,

It even preys upon its mate.)

With prey and preying both so endless,

It tends to end up rather friendless

And seldom is commended much

Except by gardeners and such.

Taken from The Llama Who Had No Pajama: 100 Favorite Poems

Last weekend, I was enjoying a warm fall afternoon {watching the kiddos play and planning our school week} on my front porch when I looked over and noticed this praying mantis hanging out next to me.

Of course I ran into the house to grab my camera…hoping he {or she ?} would be waiting for me when I returned.

The kiddos ran over to see what I was doing…and still the mantis hung around…

I love it when nature study comes to my front door :)

Nature Study ~ Apples {Autumn Series}

We are surrounded by apple orchards around here…well, we can’t actually see them from our home {although I’d love to someday be able to walk into my backyard and pick some apples from our very own tree :)}…but we do have three apple orchards in our little town ~ all less than ten minutes away.  For the past couple of years we have taken advantage of all of the fresh, local apples by buying apples by the bushel…and using them to make lots of yummy applesauce, mini apple pies, apple crisp…and of course just eating them the way God made them :).

So last week’s nature study from the Autumn 2010 Nature Study ebook was right up our alley…

One day at lunch I pulled two different varieties of apples from our refrigerator {we had just been to the orchard and picked up about 15 lbs of apples}.  I placed them on the table and we took a bit of time observing them before I cut into them.  We compared their shape, size, and color.

We then cut into them and talked about the differences between the flesh, the seeds, the core, the stem, and finally the taste. 

After we finished our lunch, we headed outside with our apple notebooking pages {provided in the Autumn Series Nature Study ebook}, a mini bucket of colored pencils, a clipboard for each kiddo, and a pile of apple books.

Each kiddo chose a book for me to read, and I read to them while they completed their notebooking pages.  I gave ds3 an apple coloring page {link provided in the ebook} instead of a notebooking page.

I think all three kiddos did a fabulous job on their papers…I absolutely LOVE the printables that Barb supplied and linked to in this ebook.

I placed everyone’s papers into page protectors and filed them away in our family nature notebook.  Our nature notebook is filling up, thanks to these easy-to-do nature study challenges :)

Nature Study ~ Signs of Autumn

Barb at Handbook of Nature Study posted a free nature study notebooking page a while back…I printed out three copies that same day.  They’ve been sitting in our nature study folder just begging to be used…this week we’ve been taking a break from “regular” schoolwork so that we could catch up on some things ~ a perfect week to fit in some nature study…

The beginning of the week was pretty rainy and chilly around here {we even plugged in our portable heater one morning}…so when the temps rose on Thursday, we took advantage of the warming trend and headed out for a nature walk around our neighborhood…a “looking for signs of autumn” nature walk :)

Before we began our walk, we talked about some of the signs of fall that we might see on our walk…and I encouraged the kiddos to keep a lookout for these things.

The leaves are just starting to turn around here, so most of the trees were still full and green,  but we did see some of the smaller trees’ leaves beginning to change and fall to the ground.

We also saw lots of pumpkins and mums decorating neighbors’ porches, the field behind us had lots of dry grass and many of the wildflowers are drying up.  We looked for signs of migrating birds…but saw none on this particular walk.

When we got home, we pulled out our colored pencils and the kiddos set to work on their “Signs of Autumn” notebooking page…even ds3 completed one :)

It’s truly amazing how refreshed we all felt after we returned from our nature walk {or run, hop, skip, and jump in my ds3’s case}.

Nature Study ~ The Horse {Autumn Series}

We skipped ahead to the 3rd assignment in our Autumn Series Nature Study {the horse} because we had an opportunity to observe a number of horses up close at our recent field trip to the county fair.

We also had the opportunity to witness one horse getting new shoes…

And many other horses in their stalls.

When we got home, we spent a little time talking about how horses compare with other mammals, namely dogs.  As the kiddos and I compared these two mammals, I filled out the venn diagram printable {included in the ebook} 

I then had ds8 and dd6 sketch a picture of a horse on their horse notebooking pages {also provided in the ebook}.  I found a “how to draw a horse” page in our Sing! Play! Create! book…I left it on the table to help dd6 draw her horse. 

I placed these pages along with our venn diagram into page protectors and filed everything in our family nature study notebook.

This Nature Study ebook has made my goal of getting nature study back into our homeschool so much easier to accomplish :)

Nature Study printables

Barb over at Handbook of Nature Study just posted a new nature study printable ~ a Signs of Autumn notebook page…and it’s free!

I have also printed off some of her daughter’s nature walk printables {check out the free downloads on her sidebar}.  We love these nature walk printables…I believe she has one for every season :)

Printables like these make for a very easy nature study lesson…no planning required.  I like to give each of my kiddos a clipboard with one of these printables attached and a pencil and we’re ready to head out for a nature walk around our neighborhood.  It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Wild Flower Garden ~ Early Summer

This is a picture of our wildflower garden…it was taken at the end of June, before the long dry spell that we’ve had the past few weeks in our neck of the woods…

 

If our summer continues in the same pattern that we’ve had these past few weeks (hot, hot, hot, and dry, dry, dry)…I imagine our beautiful wildflower garden will suffer :(

By the way, these pictures are courtesy of our budding photographer, ds8…