Just a Word of Thanks: Participation in the Outdoor Hour Challenges

After my post last week on my perception of a lack of participation in the Outdoor Hour Challenges, I received a lot of feedback both in the form of comments and in private email. I now have a better understanding of what is actually going on.

There are lots of families who are participating but not necessarily putting up a link in Mr. Linky.

Reasons for the decline in links in Mr. Linky were explained quite nicely. Many of the participants don't have blogs to link to but they are participating as a family and are still really enjoying the assignments. Some of the participants did not fully understand that it was quite acceptable to post a link to your blog that showed your nature study for the week even if you didn't find the particular insect we are learning about. Some participants really took the summer "off" from blogging and so they didn't link but they are still keeping up the nature study each week. I think those were the main explanations that were shared.

Whew, I feel better now.

I really enjoy putting the challenges together but if you look at just the numbers, which I tend to do since my profession was as an accountant, it seemed as if the participation was waning. If there were really just a few that were still completing the challenges and enjoying the assignments, it seemed silly for me to put as much effort into them as I have been. I realized that sometimes you have to ask the right question and not just look at the statistics. :) I have it straight now and I am happy to keep up the challenges.

So we are off again and I am really looking forward to the coming weeks. Upon reflection, I realized that I actually am a few challenges "behind" and I need to get some entries put together. Look for them later this week.

If you don't have a blog but you are still participating, you can always leave a comment about your nature study. I would love to hear from anyone who wants to share, blog or not. I love the sense of community that comes with sharing and I know that others benefit from seeing how each of us completes the challenges in our own way.

Happy nature study,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

PS Don't forget my give-away for the Summer Kit from Hearts and Trees.....keep those links coming!

Yosemite Insects...Just a Few to Share.

Here is my entry sharing a few of the insect photos we took while we were at Yosemite National Park a few weeks ago. There is an amazing amount of insects to observe in the various habitats that we visited. This bee is on a coneflower in a marshy meadow area.

The insect was hanging underneath the cow parsnip flower that I was attempting to photograph. I noticed him as I was standing very close to the plant. I wasn't sure what kind of insect he was but I love the way he is hanging underneath the blossom.


This was the trip where I learned to distinguish between a dragonfly and a damselfly. A dragonfly's wings are out when he lands and a damselfly has his wings back. This is a damselfly. We saw hundreds of these Circumpolar Bluets on a hike to Lukens Lake. This is smallish lake at about 8000 ft in elevation. The area where we saw these damselflies was a marshy edge to the lake. ( I added an image of my nature notebooking page for the damselfly.)



Ah, this giant dragonfly was so fast that we could hardly get a photo of him. Click on the photo to zoom in a bit on his gorgeous wings. There was another kind of dragonfly, a big blue one, at this lake too but it *never* sat still long enough for a photo. Again this was taken at Lukens Lake at Yosemite National Park.

Here is a skipper of some sort on a hike to Westfalls Meadow. I have learned to recognize this general variety of butterfly but the specific.....too many to tell. :)


I was busy trying to get a photo of a flower and then I realized that there was a ladybug on the leaf. It was the biggest ladybug I have ever seen and so very red.

This is where we realized that in the mushy mud along the meadow's edge we could see bear's tracks. Yes, lots of bear's tracks all along the way as we hiked. They did not look fresh so we just kept telling ourselves that the bear had come through a long time ago.

Here is an example of the footprint we saw all along this section of the trail. Really big.

Okay, I can't tell you how long I tried to identify this butterfly using my field guide and the internet. Nothing seemed right so I will just call this the "happy butterfly" since it was happy doing its thing with its mate. They were so big and pretty.

Just another buzzing bee in the wildflowers.....

Last but not least....a Pacific Treefrog. I don't have any other amphibians to post this with so it will go on my insect post.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a few insects from the week....and hearing about the bear and seeing the frog.

We definitely had fun hiking out into the wilderness to see all these things.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenges-Too Specific?

I am responding to comments and personal email about why families seem to be having trouble accomplishing the most current challenges.

First, I guess I have not made it very clear but the overall focus is on insects, any insect. I have been challenging you to read in the Handbook of Nature Study about specific insects so when the opportunity arises, you will have had some background on particular insects. The Outdoor Hour Challenges were first started to help families learn how to use the Handbook of Nature Study and then take those ideas and apply them to what you have in your local area.

Some participants have not posted in the latest challenges because they are reporting that they don't have crickets at this time of year or it is too late at night to look for moths. I can see how that might make the particular insect in the challenge a difficult subject but the overall focus is on any insect. Even if you don't find an insect you should be still finding 10-15 minutes during the week to have some outside time with your children. It doesn't matter to me what you focus on.....one participant in the moth challenge decided to report on rabbits. I think that is awesome.

Second, the challenges are here for you to read and then do with as you wish. I would rather you spent the time outside and enjoyed your backyard, neighborhood, or local park and not worry about the challenge if they stumble you. Take a few minutes after your outdoor time to discuss things with your children. If they find a focus or an area of interest....fantastic. Do some research. Check the Handbook of Nature Study. Draw something if you feel like it. Whatever you decide to do, big or small, post about it and then link. It is the everyday, hum-drum nature study that we are aiming for. We want nature study to become such a part of your life that it just happens and you are not even scheduling it anymore.

After saying all that, I would love for you all to think about your nature study on a weekly basis. Nature study is the long-term life project that you are building up week by week. Don't give up on the challenges because you think you are not meeting the goal. The goal is always just to get outside and spend time together with your children. If you do that, you accomplished the goal.

Later on, if you find a moth or a butterfly or a cricket, remember the reading from the Handbook of Nature Study. Pull up the challenge and post another link if you make a blog entry about your special find.

We have three more weeks of insects. The subjects will be ladybugs/aphids, honeybees, and then lastly dragonflies/damselflies. I know that a lot of you will not have these particular insects in your local area but you can still read about them in the Handbook of Nature Study and spend a little time talking with your children about them. If you complete the reading and keep your eyes open, you just may find you see one of these insects. If not, you may in the future see one and then you will have already studied a little bit about these interesting insects.

After that, we will be at a crossroads. I would like to do a late summer study of sunflowers, think about planting flower bulbs that will bloom in the spring, start a fall notebook, and begin a focus area study on trees for the fall season. I am open to ideas if you want to leave a comment.

If you think it is too hard to be led through a focus area, I can go back to giving general nature study topics again. I see the value in having a focus at all times and still leaving yourself open to learn about things from other areas that come into your life. It has made such a difference in our nature study quality in our family.

Please leave a comment or email me if you have any thoughts or questions.

Sincerely,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge #25 Housefly

“The housefly is one of the most cosmopolitan members of the animal kingdom. It flourishes in every land, plumping itself down in front of us at table, whether we be eating rice in Hong Kong, dhura in Egypt, macaroni in Italy, pie in America, or tamales in Mexico. There it sits, impertinent and imperturbable, taking its toll, letting down its long elephant-trunk tongue, rasping and sucking up such of our meal as fits its needs.”Handbook of Nature Study, page 358

Flies are a nuisance and bother to most people but they do have a purpose. After reading this week’s Handbook of Nature Study pages, you will have a better understanding and appreciation for these particular insects. I was fascinated by the information that Anna Comstock shares about something that is literally right under our noses during our everyday life. It is like most things….what we don’t focus on, we can’t see clearly. Take some time this week to be on the look out for houseflies.

Here is a link to a YouTube video of a fly eating part of a sugar cube. Totally awesome photography.
Housefly Video
(You may want to preview this video, it is a really close-up look at a housefly, sort of creepy.)


Don't miss this opportunity for nature study this week. If houseflies do not appeal to you or your children, just have some outdoor time together. See what you can find to be interested in together.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #25
Focus on Insects-Housefly1. This week read about houseflies in the Handbook of Nature Study, pages 358-361. This reading is important this week since we rarely take the time to observe a housefly close-up. Highlight or underline interesting facts as you read so when you introduce the housefly this week to your children you will have a way to remember some interesting tidbits. I know some families like to read the sections together but it works just as well if you find a few points to share with your child after you do the reading yourself. The observation suggestions on pages 360-361 give us specific things to look for. Remember our focus right now is on insects so if you don’t find a fly to observe, you can always look for other insects to study.

2. Your 15-20 minutes of outdoor time this week can be spent looking for insects. We always end up with flies when we eat outdoors. I also have one window that always seems to have a fly buzzing around it. Keep your eyes open for a housefly to observe. Do not worry if you don’t see any this week. If you do your reading, you will be prepared when you next come across this insect.

3. Give the opportunity for a nature journal entry for the fly. If you need ideas for alternative nature journal activities, please see challenges 2 and 3. Keep it simple and let your child draw what interests them in their journal. Help with the writing if they need it.

4. If you observed some other kinds of insects during the week, give the option for making a nature journal for those too. Make sure to pull out the Handbook of Nature Study to see if the insect you found is listed and you can read more about it there. If you are keeping a running list of insects you have observed during this focus period, add the insect’s name to the list.


 
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.

Finding Your Wings-A Great Beginners Course in Birding

Sometimes after many years of searching, you find just the book you have been looking for!

Most of you know that I love to watch birds and have started to keep a life list of birds that I have identified. Although I am able to recognize quite a number of birds at this point, I am still an amateur when it comes to distinguishing lots of birds I come into contact with.

For instance, take the Purple Finch, the House Finch, and the Cassin's Finch. They are so similar and I really have had to learn to look at certain distinguishing qualities to pinpoint which one is in the feeder.

Last week when I was at Yosemite National Park, I was browsing the bookstore on a hot afternoon's break from hiking. I skimmed through the shelves to find anything interesting and I was rewarded with this beauty of a book!!!
The Peterson Field Guides' Finding Your Wings: A Workbook for Beginning Bird Watchers by Burton Guttman.

This book is spiral bound and has 206 pages. It is written as a course in beginning birding. You use this worktext along with either:
A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America, fifth edition
or
A Field Guide to Western Birds, third edition
depending on where you live.

If you follow the link to the workbook above, you can look at the table of contents. While you are there, take a look at the sample pages and see what you think about this book.

I have read through just about the first hundred pages of this book and I found it very reader friendly and basic enough to give me what I need to get started but deep enough that it is going to really give me the help I need to learn to identify more birds, more quickly.

The first sections help you choose equipment like binoculars, field guides, and notebooks. After the introduction, there are chapters on learning to really "see" birds and then it moves on to teaching you to see the "easy" birds first. There are exercises with each chapter and they are to be done using the field guide for your particular area of North America. References are given to the particular field guides so it is easy to look up the birds that are being discussed. Each chapter has its own field exercises for you to complete.

There are also quizzes for each section to help you remember what you were introduced to in the chapters.

After the introduction and general lessons, there are lessons to learn about each family of birds like sparrows, wrens, blackbirds, etc.

I am seriously thinking about using this book as a supplement to the boys' biology courses or as a part of our weekly nature study. The book is set up so you could very easily make it into high school level course in ornithology. Or you could just work through it as a means of getting the basic understanding of a life-long hobby, birding.

Here is a quote from the "How to Use This Book" section.
"This is a workbook. It contains specific questions and exercises, requiring you to look at certain points in the field guides or to go out and make certain observations. As I explain in chapter 2, birding is largely about learning to see (and to hear), so most of the exercises ask you to look at the birds on a certain plate in the book and see something specific about them."

I am really looking forward to working through this book, both on my own and with the boys. I think this is just the starting point for a more thorough understanding of how to identify birds. If your heart's desire is to get to know more about birding, I highly recommend this book.

I was thinking that using this book would be a great way to supplement Apologia's Flying Creatures book too.

His whole strategy in this book is based on his idea that the best way to identify birds is "bird by bird". Taking one bird at a time, we can build a long life list of birds identified.

This book is a gem.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Waterfall on a Hot Summer Day

It was a hot summer afternoon and we were willing to take the hike to get to the waterfall. We have been here before and the waterfall and the views are worth the effort. This is one of those hikes that you start off with a well marked trail and then it seems as if the signs disappear. Normally a trail will be marked with a sign like the one above but what happens when you reach a spot that looks like this?



You look a little closer and a little higher up. Here I will zoom in for you.



If you click the photo you will find the little diamond shaped trail marker.


Our reward was this fantastic waterfall. It is so big it won't fit in one frame of the camera. The boys spent a lot of time climbing up and down the granite and then they eventually took their shoes off and waded in a bit.


I immediately took my hiking shoes and socks off and had my feet soaking in the ice cold snow water. I even dipped my head in and let my hair get wet. Why is hubby so wet?



He decided to go all the way in! Not for very long though....it took his breath away.


One wildflower photo....not many left on this hike at this time of the summer.

One interesting photo....look at his feet! He was hiking on the same trail as we were with no shoes on. I could hardly believe it.


Great afternoon, even if I did get cranky and hot. I am not always the cheerful nature study girl. :)

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Everyone Has Their Own Style-Nature Journals

We were really sitting in the same spot, on the same day. This is how your own personality comes out in your nature journal. My daughter and I each were sitting on a rock and looking pretty much at the same scene below Yosemite Falls. How could our perceptions have been so different?

(Ignore the fact that I didn't finish my entry yet.)

It is just so interesting to me that we could each focus on something different.....I focused on Half Dome and she focused on the lovely stream of water and rocks.

I just thought you might be interested to see how there is no "right" answer when you are nature journaling.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom