Spring Series #7 - Mammal Study: Cats

Outdoor Hour Challenges - Spring Series #7 - Mammal Study: Cats

Even though I grew up with cats, I am now horribly allergic. We spent Memorial Day weekend at my parents' home, who have 2 cats. But my allergies make it hard enough to stay there without intentionally searching for the cats, who are usually hiding from my kids and our dog anyways.

Over the weekend we had some new neighbors move into the empty house behind us. For a day or so I could hear a kitten in their backyard meowing, but I thought it was trying to get used to a new home or they wanted it to stay outside. To my surprise, and the surprise of my new neighbors who don't have any pets, they found 4 kittens several weeks old in the backyard - the mom is a stray. A couple of them had fallen into a window well, resulting in the meowing for help. Another neighbor was able to take them until they can be adopted into families and she let us come visit.

While I did wish very much that we could take one of these sweet kittens home with us, after about 15 minutes I needed to leave and go home and change all my clothes and wash up really good. Its very sad :(

At home my older kids did a page in their nature journal and I shared some parts I had highlighted in the Handbook of Nature Study on cats.

Other recent outdoor adventures:

We have had several sightings of a male Lazuli Bunting on our back porch. We hope to get a picture soon.

Many of the flowers in our yard are starting to bloom - the Columbine plants are especially beautiful and vibrant.

In Idaho we spent some time at the river feeding the birds.

The wildflowers on a nearby trail are starting to bloom - the kids are always so happy to see the daisies!

With the new season we also get to see some not-so-welcome guests returning, including the black widows.

Spring Series #6 - Apple Trees

Outdoor Hour Challenges - Spring Series #6 - Apple Trees

We have been dealing with a medical situation concerning our 3 year old, O, which you can read about on our family blog if you are intererested. Unfortunately, this means the end of our school year was interrupted - I've spent 2 or 3 days a week at the hospital and the days at home I've been trying to catch up on home-stuff. But because it is Spring there are lots of wonderful things happening all around us, and now that it looks like we will have a break between appointments we are catching up with the Spring Series challenges.

With this Apple Tree challenge we did a condensed version - we found some apple trees at a home improvement store :). Even though I had read through the Handbook of Nature Study Apple Tree section, with my kids I stuck to the suggested observations in the challenge post and had them do a picture for their nature journals.

Some of the exciting things that have been happening in our own neighborhood:

The black-chinned hummingbirds have returned. We could hear them flying around for a few days before we took the hint and put up our feeder. We have seen several males competing for the feeder and chasing each other away. If we are sitting on the deck and holding very still, they will come drink from the feeder.
On our neighbor's deck we have an American Robin couple who look to be starting a family. They built their nest on an outdoor speaker. We were all worried about how stable this location would be, but it has weathered several windy storms this week and even a snow storm this morning. It was exciting for my kids to watch as the nest was being built and then to stay on the look out for the eggs. We haven't seen the eggs - I don't think we are close enough. However, we have spotted the male and female changing places as they take turns sitting on the nest..
We spotted this bird of prey and were amazed to identify it as a Turkey Vulture. We have seen it on several different days - soaring above us on the look out for a tasty meal.

Spring Series #5 - Cattails

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Spring Series #5 - Cattails

Autumn Cattail Study

Winter Cattail Study

We headed to the park where we have observed cattails. A couple years ago this was more pond and lots less cattails, but the water level has dropped and is now covered with cattails.
We were a little disappointed not to find any new growth . . .
Until we found this little guy. We were very careful not to damage it as it was the only new one we could find.

We pulled up an old one to examine - leaves seem to be growing opposite, but it was hard to tell.

The roots

The head

We were delighted to observe and listen to a number of red-winged blackbirds. Their calls were very beautiful and different sounding from the other birds we usually listen to. This is the best picture I came home with - they didn't think posing for my camera was very important.

Of course the kids had lots of fun playing too!

Spring Series - #4 Dandelions

Outdoor Nature Hour - Spring Series - #4 Dandelions

We have snow (!!!) today so we weren't able to get outside, but I sent the older kids outside to bring some dandelions inside. Fortunately, the kids have eagerly been picking and playing with these smiling flowers the last couple weeks so we have some great pictures to share.
Because it is cold the dandelions were mostly closed when they were brought inside.
But they opened up after spending some time indoors.
We also found some giant dandelion leaves in a neighbor's yard (as I type our neighbors are having TruGreen treat their yard so I guess its farewell to the dandelions). This makes me sad - after seeing these fun pictures at Chocolate on my Cranium I wanted to make dandelion chains with my kids. We'll have to check some nearby parks!
Who can resist blowing a dandelion's seeds?
A large bouquet the girls picked for their dad


Journal pages:

A's

Mine

N's

One day we found this "super" dandelion with an enormous stem and head. Very impressive.

J loves to carry a dandelion in her hand as she plays - too cute!

We also studied dandelions as part of last years Wednesday Flower Study - its always fun to look back at past journal pages.

Spring Series #3 - Spring Bird Study

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Spring Series - #3 Spring Bird Study

For this Bird Study Challenge we didn't do anything special or extra - mostly just continued to notice and listen to birds when we have the opportunity.

We have spent a lot of time lately talking about and listening to birds. My little girls are starting to point them out and get excited to see them. We have been visiting local ponds and a farm where we can see ducks, geese, turkeys, and chickens.

But the bird songs my kids are most familiar with are the ones we hear in our own neighborhood. We sit on the back porch early in the morning to listen to house finches, european starlings, and mourning doves. My kids always stop and put a hand to their ears when they hear the calls of Canada geese, black-billed magpies, or California gulls.

Yesterday we were lucky tohave a Great Horned Owl nest with the mother and 2 babies pointed out to us at some local gardens we were visiting. It has reminded us to go looking for the Great Horned Owls we were able to watch and study last year.

This is a new bird for us and we are working on identifying it:

We have frequently seen it at Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country. When we were there yesterday we noticed a tree with multiple nests in it and we could hear lots of loudly chirping babies waiting for their dinner. The moms and dads were busy coming and going, but we managed to get this quick picture. WhatBird doesn't seem to be working this morning so we'll have to wait for another time. Any ideas?

UPDATE: For some reason I'm not able to view my pictures as larger images - sometimes this happens, but I don't know why. Sorry :(

Shadow Stick

Today we were able to do the shadow stick experiment we read about during our Spring Series Challenge - #2 Spring Weather.

Here is our shadow stick when we first set it up this morning. We cut down a dowel and poked it through a piece of cardboard. A little later we had to place flower pots at each corner to keep it from being blown away.

Starting at 9:00am we marked where the shadow of the dowel ended every 30 minutes until 3:00pm this afternoon.

My kids enjoyed hearing the timer go off and racing to the back porch so they could help mark the shadow. There were also times in between when I could hear A & N discussing how much the shadow had moved since the last time we marked it. I can tell they really enjoyed doing this experiment, and will look forward to doing it again in June, September and December.

Artist Study - Finishing up Picasso

Its time to move on to a new artist - Vincent Van Gogh coming up! - but first we needed to finish Pablo Picasso. I let the kids pick one of the pictures we have studied over the last couple months and then had them do a reproduction of it. While we spend some time learning about the artist's life, the point of our Artist Study is to be able to recognize the artist's work. So this is like our final exam for Pablo Picasso. A's - Still Life with Bulls Head, 1958
N's - Child Playing with a Toy Truck , 1953
See how focused and peaceful O is coloring beside A & N? Such a deceptive sight.

Here she is after I was pulled away to answer a phone call (Hello Amelia!) - marker all over her face and arms, eating the cinnamon & sugar for toast. She probably had some butter too. Thankfully J was napping or I shudder to think what would have happened.

P.S. My sweet N is a major perfectionist and shed multitudes of tears over things in her picture she thinks are wrong. She didn't want me taking pictures or sharing them, so if you have a moment, please leave a kind word for her and A - thank you!