Autumn Series - Weather

Outdoor Hour Challenge Autumn Series - Seasonal Weather

Because I knew this week would be a variety of different weather days I decided we would keep track of the weather for the whole week. I made us all a chart to put into our journals - the columns were temperature, wind, rain, and describe weather. I wrote out what the weather was like, and my kids drew pictures.

We hung a thermometer by a front window where we hope it will not blow away. So far its still there, and we've had some really windy days.

Of course, we also had snow a couple of days. I know this past winter we learned about snowflakes and Snowflake Bentley, but I couldn't find anything in my past posts so I guess I didn't blog about it.

On the first day it snowed the kids headed out with black paper and magnifying glasses (dressed in pajamas and a costume too!) to closely examine the snowflakes.

Unfortunately, the next day most of us were too sick to continue with the other planned outdoor activities. So we stuck with darting outside in the cold to check the temperature and did the rest of our observations from the windows.

Fall 2009 Schedule

Here is a picture of our latest schedule: The truth is I am always adjusting our schedule. Right now we do not have set times for each subject- that would be like hitting my head against the wall. I do have goals of when we start and when we finish, but with two toddlers (18 months and almost 3) I just know that each day is not going to be the same. I try to start school by 9 a.m. and be finished by 2 p.m. We can get about 1-1.5 hours of work done in the morning before the toddlers start going crazy, and then we take a break usually by walking or driving to a park (where we can do nature study without anyone realizing we are doing school). Then we come home to have lunch, and once my youngest is down for her nap we finish up anything left over. I also only have 4 days of school scheduled, with one day (usually Friday) set aside for field trips, catch up, grocery shopping, or nothing- which doesn't happen enough!!

Really, because Charlotte Mason emphasized short lessons, and with about 9-10 things we do each day at about 15 minutes each, that is 2 hours (at the most) of sit-down, mom-teaching, lesson stuff we do.

Autumn Series - Pumpkins

Because we did the last pumpkin challenge, I decided to keep this one low key. The kids have been begging to carve a couple of the our large pumpkins we've had sitting on our front porch. So we decide to do this and see if we could notice some new things. The kids were interested in the moisture coming out of the pumpkins where we cut them.

They noticed the designs inside.

And they spent more time examining how the seeds were attached inside the pumpkin this time around.

With perfectly spooky results!!

As a follow-up for our ladybug finds earlier this week, we thought we might have found another species:
At first we thought it could be a Polished Lady Beetle or a spotless variety of the Congergent Lady Beetle.
But based on the body shape, facial markings, the polished lady beetle's larvae pictures, and finding it on a plant with other ladybugs that had 2-13 spots, I think it is a spotless variety of the Convergent Lady Beetle.

The Art of the Brick

We decided to start our week off with a trip to Park City to the Kimball Art Center to see the Nathan Sawaya exhibit. It was awesome and we had a great time. A sample from the exhibit (I don't remember the titles):

After the tour through the exhibit, we went downstairs to the art room for a project.

A & N created a Mini-Art of the Brick exhibit when we got home, with copied and originals pieces, and was fabulous!Artist's self-portrait

What was neat about the self-portrait is that you could also see the back. It looked way different from what I had thought it would.

And who am I kidding? The girls and I spent our time entertaining ourselves on the stairs, hanging from the banister, and playing outside (and running down the long hallway, but shhhh don't tell anyone).

Ladybugs

Ladybugs all dressed in red

Strolling through the flowerbed.

If I were tiny just like you

I'd creep among the flowers too!
-Maria Fleming

I think ladybugs are every kids' favorite bugs. At least, ladybugs have been the first bugs allowed to crawl on the hands of my 4 kids, and they continue to be fascinated with them. So when we came across 3 different species this week, we gave ourselves a challenge - to identify them! Not an easy task - look here to get an idea of just how many different species there are.

Our first find was in our backyard: the Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle

Our second find was on a family hike: the Giant Lady Beetle

Our third find was on a walking path near our house: the Convergent Lady Beetle. Unlike the other two, we were able to observe TONS of these ladybugs in various stages.

Convergent Lady Beetle - larvae and adult. How many larvae/adults can you find in this picture? Many of the weeds lining the path were covered with adults and larvae.

I also think this fellow is in the beginnings of the Pupa stage - he was fixed to the weed, not moving or eating like many of the others, and bigger-fuller looking.

This was a fun supplement to our science lesson this week on Insect Metamorphosis - much better than the worksheet that came with the lesson which I skipped or even the beautiful pictures in our Animal Encyclopedia.

More Ladybug info here, including life cycle.

Geography Fall 2009

In addition to pulling out a map anytime we are talking about a place (especially in history) or the kids ask about a place, we have two other ways we study geography.

1. We read the Holling C. Holling books and map the journey made in the story. Last year we read & mapped Paddle to the Sea, and this year we are reading Tree in the Trail. Here is a link to the map I printed out for each of us on cardstock. I also have a quide called Geography: A Literature Approach, which has outlines of what to map for all the chapters, as well as lots of other study ideas in history and science. We pretty much stick to the geography information, but occasionally dip into the other areas as the kids show interest. This same company (Beautiful Feet Books) also sells a map pack to go with these books, but I've been able to find maps similar to these on google images.

2. We study a continent or foreign country-- right now we are studying Africa. We are watching the Wild Africa series from the BBC. We are reading a wonderful book called Growing Up in Africa: The True Adventures of Two American Children in the Wilds of Africa. I also check out other books from the library for the kids to look through on their own-- these are general books about Africa or picture books with African stories. I also have the Wee Sing Around the World CD, which has several songs from Africa that we listen to, and we may possibly memorize one if I happen to feel so ambitious.

Gambel's Oak

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Autumn Series- Oaks & Acorns

We have a favorite park nearby that has a small forest of Gambel Oak Trees (also known as Scrub Oaks or Rocky Mtn White Oaks). We are always picking up acorns, leaves, and bark strips, so we had plenty at home to examine, but that didn't stop us from making another trip to the park to explore.

Gambel Oak Leaf

We wanted to try making the ink leaf prints, but found all of our ink pads were dry (apparently its been a long time since we stamped!), so we used markers instead. This was a little bit trickier- we had to quickly color the back of the leaves and flip it over before the marker started to dry. It was harder for my kids, but they enjoyed making prints on everything, including their shirts. Hurray for washable markers!!

I happened to have my iron out (my attempt at multi-tasking ended up in a burnt piece of fabric-whoops), so we also pressed some leaves between wax paper. In addition to these instructions, I also suggest using leaves that have had a chance to dry so there is less moisture between the wax paper- the ones that worked best for us were a couple weeks old and I had kept them ander a couple books so they were flat.

While we were at the park I had the kids make bark rubbings, and they also decided to try leaf rubbings at home.

Gambel Oak Bark Many of the trees were covered in orange and yellow lichen. Gambel Oak Acorn
I cracked a couple open to see the inside, and this inspired my son to crack open the rest. We tasted the acorns as well, but they were really bitter. I'm guess that is because of the tannic acid, which can be poisonous in large quantities.You should have seen the kitchen counter- wax paper, journals, leaves, acorns, acorn caps and shell pieces, sticks, bark strips, markers, crayons, colored pencils, fabric- let's just say we were trying to cram a lot of projects in while the little 2 were napping. We really enjoyed this nature study and the time we had to be creative.

Outdoor Nature Challenge

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Autumn Series: Goldenrod or Other Autumn Flowers


We live in an area that isn't a meadow-y, and I knew we hadn't seen any Goldenrod in the past couple weeks, so I instructed my kids to be on the lookout for flowers of any kind.

There were plenty of Common Sunflowers

Lots of Bird's-foot Trefoil

Thickstem Aster

And this shrub/flower which I haven't yet been able to identify. I've been trying for a couple weeks now.

Here is a close up of the blooms:

Here is a close up of the stem and leaves:

I will probably give the kids the opportunity to journal about today's nature walk, but I don't think the flowers will beat out the other highlights of our walk. We were able to watch this mule deer grazing along the trail, and then a short time later we saw 6-8 more as they all crossed the street together. It's was weird to be in this stand of trees watching deer with the sounds of cars passing and construction in the distance.

Another highlight: as we walked by the fishing pond a nice man let the kids reel in a couple fish.

A couple more wonderful nature experiences from earlier this week:

Nyah found this beautiful spider - if you click on the picture you can see it is carrying its young on its back.

From the cattail challenge we had gathered some cattails to bring home, and they exploded yesterday as we sat around the kitchen table. I'm still finding seeds all over the place.