The theme of last Winter Wednesday was snow and well, no shortage of snow around here: a whole lot fell last night and more is on the way. I requested the book, Discover Nature in Winter, from the interlibrary loan, but it hasn’t arrived yet. But Barb mentioned the following experiment: melt and filter different …
Category Archives: nature study
Drawing Dinosaurs at the Museum
Over the holidays we made several visits to several Natural History Museums. Amie was keen to see the dinosaur bones. When she was 2,5 years old she learned that the dinosaurs are extinct. She was having dinosaur nightmares at the time and our discussions about their demise and the meanings of “extinct” and “dead” helped …
Outdoor Hour Challenge #2: Using Our Words
Bad weather and illness delayed our second Outdoor Hour challenge – we did Challenge #1 over a month ago and it’s supposed to be a weekly challenge! But yesterday we were – and we still are (knock on wood) – healthy, and the temperature deigned to rise above freezing (though only barely), and the sun …
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Two Nature Experiments
We had two experiments going on here yesterday and part of today. First: dunking cones When we found this cone on our Outdoor Hour walk last week, we identified it as a Norway Spruce cone. It was wet and cold when we brought it in, and we (I) had observed that the scales were slowly …
Featured in Outdoor Hour!
We were featured on Handbook of Nature Study today! Thanks Barb-Harmony Art Mom!
The Qualities of Nature
Sorry for my absence here. I’m ill in bed. Not the little sickness, which asks for bed and tea and a stack of books and reading all day – that doesn’t happen anymore, with a child too young to care yet: it feels like too much of an indulgence. No, a more serious illness, with …
A Drawing of My Own
{This was written yesterday but I had already posed two entries so kept it for today} I slept badly last night, or rather not at all (this cold is getting the better of me). Ever since having Amie I can function pretty well on very little sleep, on a certain level. But this morning I …
Outdoor Hour Challenge #1 and Field Book Drawing
The first Outdoor Hour challenge is simple. Read pages 1-8 (did that, read my “book review” here) and head outdoors! The focus is Comstock’s principle that “In nature-study the work begins with any plant or creature which chances to interest the pupil.” So yesterday we went for an hour-long walk around our block and we …
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Nature Study for a Three-Year-Old
Though I am still feeling sick, we went outside. It was a good day for it and Amie really wanted to. It was bright, with some clouds moving in, a few gusts of wind but otherwise not too blustery, and unseasonably mild (mid 40s). We bundled up and went for a long walk around the …
Squirrels
Besides birds, we have also been observing the resident squirrel eating our three ears of Indian Corn and guarding it from other squirrels. He/she somehow got it down from our porch light. Amie was enthralled by how he carried a kernel in his mouth, ran along the balcony ledge, then down and through the drain …