Natuer Study/Science - Fall 2009

Nature Study

We have been doing the Handbook of Nature Study blog Outdoor Hour Challenges, and plan on continuing this as long as Barb keeps posting challenges! Sometimes we do write and draw in our nature journals, but mostly we enjoy learning about the world around us.

For nature tales (fictional nature stories), we are currently reading Pagoo by Holling C Holling, and we will read Secrets of the Woods by William J. Long next.

Science

For science experiments we are trying out the Backyard Scientist series for the first time. We've only done it once so far (our official school start was September 16th), but the kids really enjoyed it and have been asking to do more.

We will be finishing up God's Design for Life: The Animal Kingdom this year as well. It is a short book, but with all the other things we do we moved through this really slow last year. I like that it is told from a christian viewpoint (acknowledging the world and all its creatures are God's creations), but there are some ideas that I'm not completely confident about, so I carefully pre-read and leave out what I don't want to include. Also, it can be "textbook-y" so I keep it really short- Yesterday it wanted us to label a pie chart - why? Nothing against pie charts, but I can just say insects make up the majority of arthropods, we don't need to label a pie chart to get it.

I am still waiting on a couple books from amazon, and Science: 100 Scientists Who Changed the World is one of them. It gives (can you guess?) a brief biography of 100 scientists whose work changed the world.

We are also reading another book that is similar to 100 scientists, called The Story of Inventions, but this focuses on inventors and inventions of the last 200 years, while the 100 Scientists includes other time periods (such as the one we are studying this year - the Renaissance & Reformation).

For science tales we will be reading Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather, which is a collection of stories about "a single air mass traveling from the Canadian Rockies to the northeastern United States (back cover)."

History - Fall 2009

We are at the start of a new school year, so I thought I would share some of the resources we plan on using, starting with History.

We do history 2 days a week (Mon & Wed), for about 15-30 minutes at a time. After I read from the book the kids illustrate the story in their history journals and I will write or help them write anything they want to say about it. We also place a picture with a little bit of information in our timeline notebook, and find the places discussed on our maps.

For World History we are studying the Renaissance & Reformation era. The books we will be using are:

Famous Men of the Renaissance & Reformation will be our main spine. This just barely shipped from amazon today, so we will be about a month late getting started. Last year we used HA Guerber's The Story of the Middle Ages, which told history in a story format (the link has sample chapters), and my kids had a hard time listening and following along. Too many extra details I think. I'm hoping with Famous Men we can focus on the stories of the important people of the era and fill in details (dates, places, politics, etc.) with later school years.

For history biographies we are going to read Bard of Avon, Leonardo da Vinci, and Good Queen Bess by Diane Stanley. We might also read her Michelangelo book if we have time.

We will also check out library books, such as those recommended by Simply Charlotte Mason, to give the kids an idea of how people lived, what the houses and buildings looked like,

For American History we are mainly reading biographies (some fiction), and aren't really focusing on a specific time period. Some of these books I specifically want to read with them, and some I just already have and may include.

Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims
Path to the Pacific: The Story of Sacagawea
A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple (Mayflower, 1620)
A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32

We will read also read The American Revolution

Nyah's Liberty Girls club is reading the Kaya books, which is the Native American - American Girl.

Austin's Knights of Freedom club is doing the American frontier era through the Childhood of Famous Americans series and will be reading Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, and Crazy Horse.

I also have the I Love America teacher resource kit which highlights an american history story each month September through May, which I sometimes remember to use.

There are also other subjects where we touch on history information, such as our Foreign Country Study, Composer Study, Artist Study, and Poetry, but history isn't the focus of these subjects so they aren't included in the history journals, but we do add important people and events to our timeline.

Outdoor Hour Challenge

Autumn Series #1 - Cattails

We looked at a few pictures online, and I shared some things from the Handbook of Nature Study before heading to a nearby park. I know I was surprised the cattail is found in the "Wild Flowers" section of the handbook. I'd never thought of it as a wild flower.

"(Cattails) are very flexible, and therefore yield to the wind rather than defy it. (HNS p.501)" We found this to be true with the heavy winds blowing around here today!

The last time we visited this park (~18 months ago) there was a pond with cattails growing on the edges, but today the pond is gone, the land is marshy, and the cattails have taken over the area.

Sword fighting cattail-style

Can you spot their little golden heads? I can because I know where they were when I took the picture!

No adventure with little kids would be complete without a stop at the playground.

Austin & Nyah decided to use Barb's notebook page, and I did mine in my nature journal.

Austin-

Nyah-

Kelsey-

A Scene with Clouds

I am having my kids participate in Sketch Tuesday from the Harmony Fine Arts blog this year. Here are Austin & Nyah's pictures from this past week:

Nyah's

The beach has been in a lot of pictures this week.

She called this one New York City. I guess it could be Central Park. I like the squirrel climbing down the tree. It reminds me of a crazy squirrel that was showing off for Amelia and I at a park in South Carolina.

Austin's

The beach

Here is a close up of his crab - the arrows are for things that are falling on the crab- waves, rain, and a coconut.
This is the rain forest

Adding to our Vacation

We recently returned from a family vacation to the Oceanside, California area. About a month ago, in anticipation of this vacation, the kids and I started learning about beach and ocean life.

The first book we started to read was Pagoo by Holling C. Holling. We tried this book a couple years ago and the kids weren't interested, but this time around they kept begging for me to read more, and even now that we are home they still want to finish the book.

We also checked a number of books from our library by searching under subjects like "tide pools" or "marine animals." A couple favorites were A Harbor Seal Pup Grows Up and Hermit Crabs and other Shallow-water Life, but there were lots of wonderful books to choose from.

We also found another great book at the Handbook of Nature Study blog in the post called "Creating Anticipation in Nature Study." The book is called One Small Square: Seashore by Donald M. Silver. This book has beautiful illustrations and wonderful information, and my kids have enjoyed comparing the shells we brought home with the shell illustrations on page 36.

We also watched a couple documentaries about the ocean. Coral Reef Adventures, which is an IMAX move, and The Blue Planet: Seasonal Seas (episode 5) and Coral Seas (episode 6).

And of course we couldn't miss my toddler's favorite: Finding Nemo, which in addition to the movie also has a couple special features showing real footage of ocean dwelling creatures.

Charlotte Mason said, "They must be let alone, left to themselves a great deal, to take in what they can of the beauty of earth and heavens (Home Education, pg. 44)" At times it was hard for me to follow this advice, especially when they would rather ride the waves at the beach instead of closely examining the kelp or seashells (not hard to imagine, is it?). But for the most part I was able to stop myself from saying "come look at this," "remember reading about this," and "did you notice." And then later I would over hear them talking to each other about the kelp or what kind of shells they found.
The part of our vacation that warmed my heart the most was when we went to the Birch Aquarium in San Diego. They spent longer periods of time lingering over tanks with ocean life that they were familiar with- watching the jellyfish swim up and down in a tank, trying to see the octopus' mouth, talking about the ocean camouflage exhibits without needing to read the informational signs, and even talking about Bruce from Finding Nemo while watching the feeding of the sharks.

As we walked through the tank exhibits we ended up behind a tour bus group, and I kept trying to pass the group so we could go faster, until I realized my kids were intentionally lingering to listen to guide and then looking closely at the tank to find what he was speaking about. At the tide pools the kids were delighted to able to touch the live animals- large smiles when touching the starfish and sea slugs, and the quick looks of worry that crossed their faces when asked if they wanted to touch an anemone or sea urchin until they were assured their skin was too tough to be hurt.

We would have had a wonderful trip without learning anything beforehand, but our little bit of knowledge greatly enhanced our overall experiences. and as Charlotte Mason says " . . . there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life."

School Updates

Glance over to the sidebar and you can see we are starting some new studies in our school.

For poetry we are reading William Blake.

We didn't keep up our Artist Study through the summer, so we will continue studying Claude Monet's works, starting with Red Boats, Argenteuil.

Our new Composer Study will be Ludwig van Beethoven.

I also thought it would be fun to include some quotes from each person.

Have a great day!!

Pumpkins

Outdoor Nature Challenge- Crop Plants: Pumpkins

We are a few challenges behind because of our vacation, but it worked out for this challenge. Before our vacation there wasn't a pumpkin for sale anywhere and now, a couple weeks later, the store's are full of them. Also, I selected the wrong picture size when uploading so I hope you can see them okay.

We planted pumpkins a few months ago, but this little seedling is our best result, which was accidentally plucked from the ground when we were trying to pick a leaf.

Our pumpkin

My kids love these little pumpkins and the gourds. They are a great price at the local stores right now so I let the kids pick some. I especially like the Tiger Stripe pumpkin (white with orange stripes).

Working on our journals

We carved the large pumkin, but will keep the smaller ones with the gourds for our fall decorations. We also read the pumpkin poem from Barb's post and looked at the pictures of the pumpkin's life cycle as well.

Nyah's journal

Austin's journal

One decided to tape a seed on the page, so they both started taping all kinds of things in. I'm not sure how the pumpkin slime from the inside will turn out, but if it starts to smell too bad I just might have to do a little editing.