Our Green Hour #11 Year-Long Tree Study

For this challenge we were to choose a tree to study for a year, observing it in each season to notice the changes. My son and I used the Tree Study sheet to prompt our observations but in the Handbook of Nature Study on page 625 there is a section on "Spring Work" to use with your own tree.

My son has suddenly taken an interest in basketball and is bouncing a ball in every spare moment. I tore him away yesterday afternoon to have him to pick his tree and do a quick observation. He picked one of the sweet gum trees that we have growing just off our back deck. We have four of these trees planted as a shade break for the hot summer afternoons. They are perfect for shading us for the late summer sun and then they loose all their leaves in the winter and allow the sun to hit our house in the winter to make it light and cheery. They also turn the most magnificent colors in the autumn and make the view out our back windows very colorful and enjoyable to look at....I can see them as I wash dishes at the kitchen sink. they are not native to our area but they are very popular as tree plantings in neighborhoods and in yards for shade and their beauty.

So here is a copy of his notebook page for his journal. I am going to slip it into a sheet protector and hopefully the leaf will survive for the year that we have ahead. At least we will have the scan of the page so we can compare on the computer if we need to.



Here is a little sampling of photos from his tree taken on May 3, 2008.


(note the bouncing basketball....I don't always get rapt attention for nature study)


(click this photo and you will see an ant on the bark)



You can join the Green Hour Challenges at any time. Look on the sidebar of this blog for links to all the challenges.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge #12 Focus on Garden Flowers

Many of you have expressed the desire to have a group focus for the Outdoor Hour Challenges. I hesitated at first because among the participants there are such a variety of habitats involved in the Outdoor Hour Challenges. We have those participants that live in the rainy Northwest, some live in the hot Southwest, many live in urban areas, and then there are families that are just getting their feet wet with nature study all around the world.


After much thought and consideration, I managed to convince myself that we could all share in a focus area to some extent and if you choose not to participate in the group focus, you are certainly welcome to pick your own focus area and share with everyone week by week as well. I want the Outdoor Hour Challenges to be positive and encouraging and I will strive to maintain that goal.


If you are new to gardening and need some tips, I will give you some easy instructions. Growing plants from seeds is easy. We use yogurt cups filled with a little potting soil to start our seeds. Follow the directions on the seed packet for seed planting depth, watering, and transplanting. Good first choices are sunflowers, zinnias, marigolds, and petunias. In general you can grow just about anything in a little cup or pot as long as it gets some sun and a little water each day. If it is still cold at night where you live, you may want to sprout your seeds indoors. Our weather has warmed up so we are growing ours on our back deck. As an experiment you could keep some cups outdoors and some indoors just to see the difference in their growth. (That's extra credit.)

Outdoor Hour Challenge #12
Start Your Engines…I Mean Seeds

1. Begin an eight week focus on garden flowers. Follow along with us as we adventure into the garden, whether it is your own flower pot with seeds in it, a square foot garden, a park with some flowers to observe, or anything in between. Read pages 453-456 in the Handbook of Nature Study-How to Begin The Study of Plants and Their Flowers.

“The only right way to begin plant study with young children is through awakening their interest in and love for flowers.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 453

This would be a great week to take a field trip to a garden nursery to observe the variety of colors and textures in garden flowers that are available in your local area. While you are there, let your child pick out a flower to add to your home garden. You can pick out seeds to grow, a plant already growing in a pot, or both. If you haven’t started a garden yet, pick a flower that you can grow in a container either on your back porch or in a window. (Please note that in week 16 we will all be starting sunflowers and you may wish to pick those seeds up while you are at the nursery.) If you are starting some garden flowers from seed, make sure to water them according to the directions on the package. In general you will want to keep them moist during the germination period (until you see the plant popping out of the ground).

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for some garden flowers in your own area. If you already have some of your own garden flowers blooming, pick one to identify and see if it is listed in the Handbook of Nature Study.

3. Start a new list in your nature journal of garden flowers that you have planted or that you have seen while on your field trip or during your outdoor time. Make sure as you start this study of garden flowers that you turn to the Handbook of Nature Study’s table of contents to the “Garden Flowers” section and mark or highlight those garden flowers listed that you think you will encounter during your nature study time. Each week pick one flower to read about before you have your OHC time and this will help you have some interesting information to share with your children. If you found a new flower during your nature time, be sure to follow up with a reading in the Handbook of Nature Study if it is listed in the book.

4. Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry. Drawing flowers is a very enjoyable experience for most children. 

5. If you are going to make field guide cards for your garden flowers, start those this week. Try to make one card per week and at the end of this focus period you will have eight cards completed.



This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.
 
 
Post an entry on your blog sharing your experiences. You can link up by clicking the carnival button or you can send them directly to me: harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com.

Spider and a Ladybug: Tangled Webs

My son's keen eyes spotted this drama happening right on our back deck. The spider was spinning this ladybug up as we watched. Click the photo to see it more clearly. The spider is gorgeous.

"Perhaps no structure made by a creature lower than man is so exquisitely perfect as the orb web of the spider.....There should be an orb web where the pupils can observe it, preferably with the spider in attendance." Handbook of Nature Study, page 441

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Nature Study and Toddlers

I recently helped a friend with some advice on how to have nature study with your school-age children with your sweet toddler tagging along. I thought you all might like to hear what I shared with her.

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Here's what I related to her about my experience with nature journals:
Nature study is not so much about the journals, it's about the experience of being out-of-doors. It's great when it culminates in a nature journal entry but if it doesn't....no big deal. You said you wanted to instill a love for nature and you could quite possibly be already doing that just by focusing a bit of time outside. Let your kids direct you when you have the time to wander the yard or the neighborhood. Don't expect anything and don't try to force it.

Here's what we would do when the boys were younger:
I would send the boys outside and let them play. I find that if they get that initial burst of energy out they are ready to get down and focus on something.I would go with them and just wander the yard. I might find something of interest and call them over. "Hey guys look at this!"

It worked sometimes.....or they would do the same to me. "Look at that spider on the slide mom, do you know what it is?"

This was usually followed but utter horror by me because I am not a "bug person". I would usually go over and look at it and then I would point something out like how many legs it had or what color it was. Later when we were finished playing, we would go inside and I would pull out the journals. They could draw whatever they wanted as long as they narrated back to me what it was. I would write the labels or as they got older, they would write the labels. If we felt like it, we would look up in a field guide whatever it was we had drawn. I have a lot of the Audubon field guides so we could usually find something in there. I found the internet to be a great help.

Let your younger one do things like leaf rubbings or texture drawings for his very own nature journal. Send him on a scavenger hunt while you work with your daughter. "Go get me a leaf." "Find a rock." "Can you find a bug in the grass?" "Find me something brown." Just something to get him involved.

We handle nature journals a little differently now that they are older but you get the idea. Take a walk or just go to the park, there will always be something to draw their attention to. They have to learn to notice things and then it is easier.

Also remember you have *years* to work on your nature journal. My daughter that is 21 years old still works in her nature journal. It is sort of a "life project".

Enjoy God's creation!
Barb
Harmony Art Mom

Not All Nature Journals Look the Same

Timbuck2Mom asked me in a comment: Do all your children love nature or do you have to prod them to look up things in the field guides?

Short answer to your question:
Yes, my children all love nature in their own way and I encourage them to make entries in their nature journal but I don't always make them look things up in the field guides. I am pretty relaxed in my approach to nature journals in general.

Long answer to your question:
I have said before and it is the honest truth: If we spend time with nature and it ends with a journal entry, great. If we spend time with nature and it doesn't end with a nature journal entry, that's okay too. I honestly feel that it is the time spent outside close to nature that brings us close together in our faith and in our family.

My husband and I both love nature and choose to be out-of-doors if we have the chance. My husband is a wildland firefighter so he spends even his work hours in the forest. Our way of life is very much centered on enjoying God's creation whether it be in our own backyard, our neighborhood, or in visiting beautiful places. I started a nature journal when the children did so they could see by my example that I thought it was important in my life. I also think that my enthusiasm always sparks their enthusiasm. If I get excited about something, then they at least take the time to come and look at what I am talking about.

Each of the children has their own interests as far as the things they see in nature. My daughter is drawn to things like beautiful landscapes and colorful flowers. This is what I see in her journals. My oldest son is a more nuts and bolts sort of nature journaler. He has grown to be my graphic artist and his style shows through in what he draws in his nature journal. He is now 19 and he does some nature photography. Here is a photo of him on a hike we took through a sequoia grove.
My middle son loves birds and anything to do with flying. He draws birds more often than anything else in his nature journal. Last year we participated in the Great Backyard Bird count and he was the one that spent the most time observing and counting birds in our backyard.

My youngest son loves small things in nature. He is the one looking for bugs, pretty leaves, and rocks. He also loves small animals. He will try to entice our backyard resident squirrel to come down for some nuts on the sidewalk. He will spread a blanket on the grass and watch the birds in the tree. He will often climb a tree to sit and wait for birds to come to the feeders.

Find subject that your children are interested in: rocks, trees, birds, mammals, wildflowers, reptiles, or insects. Follow their lead and get them their own journal and field guide. Take the journal and guide with you wherever you go and they will start to look for opportunities to record their finds.

I wanted to include some scans of our nature journals but I am out of Flickr.com space for the month so I will post them after the first.

Hope that answers your question.
Barb
Harmony Art Mom

Field Guides: From My Shelf

Since we have started our Green Hour Challenge, readers have been asking for field guide suggestions. I decided to put together a list of the main field guides that I use throughout the year. I have quite a collection but these are the ones we use the most. I am in California and most of my nature exploring is on the West Coast so obviously these will not be what you would use if you lived in the Midwest or on the East Coast. They will give you an idea of the series that I prefer and then you can look for versions that would fit your area of the world. I always check guides out at the library before purchasing them or I go into Borders and do a side-by-side comparison.

Hope this helps someone with their choices,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Field Guide Recommendations
West and Northwest

A little bit of everything for Western Forest
Western Forests by Stephen Whitney (Audubon Society Nature Guides)
ISBN 0394731271
On amazon.com used for 24 cents

Birds:
Field Guide to North American Birds-Western Region (Audubon Society)
ISBN 0394414101
On amazon.com used for 1 cent
Actual photographs of the birds.

Wildflowers:
Field Guide to North American Wildflowers-Western Region (Audubon Society)
ISBN 0394504313
On amazon.com used for 1 cent
Actual photographs of the wildflowers.

Trees:
Western Trees (Peterson Field Guide)
ISBN 0395904544
On amazon.com new for $13.60 and used for $7.70
Colored illustrations of trees, leaves, and cones.

Insects:
I have yet to find the "perfect" insect guide but this one comes close. I use it and get close to identifying the insect and then use the internet.
Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders (Audubon Society)
ISBN 0394507630
On amazon.com new for $19.95 or used for $5.08
Actual photographs of insects and spiders.

For use on the Pacific Coast:
Pacific Coast Mammals by Ron Russo ISBN 0912550163
Tree Finder by May T. Watts ISBN 0912550015
Pacific Coast Fern Finder by Glenn Keator ISBN 0912559139

Nature Journal-Examples from a Young Child

Here is a little slideshow I put together for you to see how our nature journals started out eight years ago. In the Green Hour challenges, a lot of families are giving journaling a try and doing a great job. The nature journals really are what your child wants to make of them.

Here is the link to the slideshow if you have trouble viewing it here on the blog:
Nature Journal-Young Child

In the slideshow I tried to show examples of a simple formula you could try if the drawing is hard for your child.

Simple nature journal entry=sketch, label, and a date.
Another simple idea=a leaf rubbing or an outline

To get the best rubbing, try using the side of a crayon that you have taken the paper off of. Depending on the object you are rubbing, apply firm pressure and make sure to get around all the edges.

I hope this encourages your family to try a nature journal entry after your next outdoor excursion.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom