Nature Studies: Evergreens

What a perfect nature study challenge for us this week - Evergreens! Surrounding our house is a FOREST of beautiful, stately Evergreens to explore: Eastern White Pines, Blue Spruce, and Balsam Fir. Our focus this week was to explore the yard, identifying different evergreens and comparing their needle-shaped leaves, cones and bark.

Our Reference Books for This Nature Study

So, we bundled up and headed out to explore the yard on an overcast, chilly day. Trudging through the deep snow covered with ice was a bit rough, so we didn't venture into our woods far. We found some interesting animal tracks and most of us think they're possibly raccoon. 

Raccoon Tracks?

We identified our three main types of conifers and one evergreen shrub, took samples and headed back inside to warm up. The kids observed QUICKLY that the curled rhododendron leaf uncurled in the warmth of the house. They decided to experiment by placing the leaf in the freezer and taking it out to watch it uncurl over and over.

S's Surprised to see the Rhododendron Uncurl

Our Needle (and a Cone) Samples

C Checking Out the Pine Needles Close-Up

After discussing the differences in the needles, including shape, color, how they feel and smell, and how they grow, the kids wrote up their notebooking pages.

J's Notebook Page

C's Notebook Page

S's Notebook Page

Check out other Winter Wednesday and Outdoor Hour Challenges at Handbook of Nature Study Blog and enjoy other Science "happenings" at Science Sunday!

Winter Wednesday, Outdoor Hour and Science Sunday: Winter Weather

Brrrrr! ((shiver)) Winter weather in Maine = LOTS of SNOW! So, this week it seemed perfect that we explored the Handbook of Nature Study blog's Outdoor Hour Challenge #4: Winter Weather, Winter Wednesday #3: Winter Sky and Winter Wednesday #2: Snow and took a quick look at Winter Wednesday #4: Tree Silhouettes . Mother Nature certainly cooperated on the SNOW part for us!

Monday's Sky - Beautiful Blue!

Tuesday and Wednesday's - GRAY Sky

Thursday Sky: Blue with Quick Moving Clouds

Friday's Sky - Blue with LOTS of Clouds

 Over the course of the week we've been keeping a Daily Weather Log to record our weather. We included temperature, dew point, air pressure, wind speed, wind direction, precipitation, cloud type, and relative humidity. Most of our weather discussions centered around learning how humidity and air pressure can help us to predict if a storm is coming. And fortunate for us - a major snow storm rolled in and we had clear data to refer too.

A Few of the Book we Referred to for Information

J's Almost Completed Daily Weather Log

 We took our temperature data to the next level: How accurate are weather forecasts for OUR SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN? So, we recorded the highest temperature we saw on our digital outside thermometer and compared it with the highest temperatures predicted by The National Weather Service and a local news channel then graphed the information. While neither the NWS or news channel were "right on", the NWS was closer to our recorded temperatures.

But! what Winter Wednesday would be complete without PLAYING OUTSIDE?

Licking Icicle Sculptures

J Knee-Deep in Snow with our 10' Hoop

S and C Crawling Under the Pine

J Sitting in a Snowbank

Check out other Nature Studies at Handbook of Nature Study's blog by clicking on the sidebar button! And join up with Science Sunday to see what other families are doing!

Weekly Wrap: Days 97-100 and Making Changes!

We've completed 100 days this year! Excellent! We have just 75 days left in our 7th year of homeschooling! Alright! It's not that we don't enjoy our days - WE DO! - but we also REALLY enjoy and look forward to those fleeting warm, sunny late Spring and Summer days when we can play at the state parks, go on LONG afternoon strolls through the woods, grow veggies in our Square Foot Garden, and read books together while swaying in the hammock under the shade of the broadleaf trees. The warm weather season in  Maine seems to slip by quicker and quicker every year, and we want to be out there unscheduled and without textbooks! (OK, well, at least somewhat unscheduled! LOL)

Summer at the Atlantic - Something to look Forward To

What DID we do this week?  Well, I changed S's Daily Assignments. Sometimes refocusing on new subjects and using different curriculum SPARKS excitement when it's waning, and S had become bored with his Kumon Mazes and Dot-to-Dot Vehicle Puzzles. They're AWESOME for building his visual tracking skills (which his OT and I discovered earlier in the year he's struggling with), but he's truly mastered the maze and dot-to-dot activities. And he finished up his last lapbook. Time for a break!  Out with the old and in with the new: US States and Capital Sticker Book and Lakeshore File Folder Science Games (K-1)! I've also started having him write from memory and in order numbers on a 100 Chart grid (which I slipped into a plastic page protector so he can do this activity over and over with Dry Erase Markers) - he worked on 1-20 this week - and review Skip Counting 2s and 5s. (I can't remember where I got the paintbrush printables for skip counting so if you know let me know. LOL) What stayed the same? S'll continue on with Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read - he started short i this week - and Horizons Math K. 

S Copying his /ig/ Words into his Journal

S Writing 1-15 on his 100s Grid from Memory

S Putting his Skip Counting Paintbrushes in Order

 Now things didn't change much for C. I've been tweaking some of her curriculum throughout the year as Spelling, Writing and Math have been rough spots. I added in Daily Grams. She gets a little Grammar from the Grammar and Writing Handbook, but it's time to reinforce those concepts and go to "the next level". And we "stepped up" the editing process on her creative writing, focusing more on descriptions, developing characters and settings, and having a clearer story line. We're only a couple of weeks into using All About Spelling Level II and she's enjoyed it SO MUCH more than Spelling Power. (I'm still holding onto Spelling Power though! LOL I think it works great...with some kids.) She'll continue on with Handwriting Without Tears, Saxon Math 54, Apologia Zoology III, and her History Pockets: Native American unit study.

R Helping C Play Guess Who Extra!

C Working Through Math

And things changed even less for J. Fortunately most curriculum just, well, fits with him. It doesn't matter if it's a VERY traditional textbook or a notebook page or on-line; he reads, does and absorbs. He worked on his Pond Press newsletter, but also started doing Creative Composition, writing longer, fictional stories and going through an multi-step editing process. (We've mostly focused on informational or report writing.) He'll continue on with middle school Grammar at The Teacher's Cafe and Wordly Wise 3000 Level 6, Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, Apologia General Science with a Lap n' Learn from Live n' Learn Press, and DK's World History.

J's Tightening Loose Leg Bolts Under the Table (Home Repairman)

J Made a Positive and Negative Abacus at Not Math Math

We DEFINITELY want to continue on with our Winter Wednesday, Outdoor Hour and Science Sunday activities! The kids just LOVE  getting outdoors and learning about nature! This week we studied trees and continue observing our backyard feeder birds! Check out this week's activities by clicking here!

C's Flower Garden Planner and Notes

Now, onto our last 75 days of school! Where are those garden seed catalogs to plan for spring? Oh, yeah, J's got one planning our Square Foot Garden and C's got the other planning her flower bed!  Check out other Weekly Wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and join the blog hops at Hip Homeschool Hop and Friday Blog Hop - buttons are on my sidebar!

Winter Wednesday, Outdoor Hour Challenge and Science Sunday: Conifers

My plan this week was for us to spend some time observing the winter sky, both day and night, but with the temperatures staying in the low single digits for HIGHS and negative DOUBLE digits for lows soon after the sun set, I decided to wait for some less BONE-NUMBING weather. So, we started a conifer tree study with pine trees right in our yard!

Eastern Pine - Yard Side

 Eastern Pine - Road Side

We trudged through the packed snow to look closely at a stately, old pine tree in our side yard as well as a young pine tree next to it - Eastern White Pines (Pinus strobus L.) Maine is known as "The Pine Tree State" and these trees are our State Tree. How nice that we have BOTH an old and a young pine tree to compare barks and shape!

Old Pine (left) and Young Pine (right)

The Eastern Pine has clusters of 5 3-5 inch needle-shaped leaves that do not change colors or fall off in the Autumn months. (It's an evergreen.) It has cylindrical 4-8 inch long brown cones that take 2 years to mature and release seeds. Pine trees are used in furniture and cabinet-making and the pulp is used for ceiling tiles and paper.

Cones (Taken this Summer)

Pine Needles

After making bark rubbings (with typing paper and the sides of crayons) and taking a single cluster of needles for our notebooking pages, we settled inside with Hot Cocoa and learned about our pine trees from Forest Trees of Maine (Department of Conservation Forest Services - Maine) book.

S Looking at Needles Under a Magnifying Glass

[Extra Tidbit: This book is AWESOME! It's VERY easy to use as a tree identification guide and has full-color photos of the tree, bark and leaves with written information and is broken down into specific types of trees such as pines and maples. If you live in Maine or New England, check it out for FREE at the Maine Forest Service! Click on the .pdf files on the left side.] 

Books Used for Our Pine Tree Study

We read and learned about the parts of all trees, making a diagram on our notebook pages, then added our own pine tree drawings, needle-shaped leaves and bark rubbings. (For free nature study printables, visit the Handbook of Nature Study blog.)  Here are our finished notebooking pages:

S's Notebook Page

C's Notebook Page

J's Notebook Page

 Check out other Winter Wednesday and Outdoor Hour Challenges at the Handbook of Nature Study blog and everything Science at Science Sunday by clicking on the sidebar buttons!

Winter Wednesday and Science Sunday: Winter Birds and Finding Color

Cardinal

Black-capped Chickadee

Winter Wednesday was SUCH a hit last week! J worked on his 3 remaining Cornell notebooking pages while C printed out some additional pages to color using our Birds of Maine Field Guide and started her "My Running List of Birds". Even S enjoyed watching the birds and squirrels in the feeders despite feeling "under the weather". And a couple of afternoons (in the CHILLY temperatures), C and S sat perfectly still in Resin chairs near the feeders to watch and hear the birds as they darted in and out of the evergreens and deciduous trees. You know an activity is a hit when the kids continue to investigate and learn all on their own! Isn't that AWESOME?!

Cardinal in Flight

Now, the Black-capped Chickadees aren't very anxious about us being around so I was able to stand close to the feeders and get some GREAT photos. The Cardinal and Blue Jays were a bit more skittish. My camera doesn't have a zoom and cropping makes the photos grainy, but I got some interesting shots.

Blue Jay Ground Feeding

                                                                  

Our studies this Wednesday included reading and discussing some information in Discover Nature in Winter: Things to Know and Things to Do (Elizabeth P. Lawlor) about why some birds migrate and others don't and how those that stay cope with the colder temperatures. The kids continued to work on their Cornell coloring pages and My Running List of Birds, but our big hands-on project was painting small birdhouses to hang in the evergreens. (Talk about color! LOL) We "stuffed" these bird houses with dryer lint in the hopes of providing a warm, comfortable home for Chickadees (or other small birds). 

Kids Painting Bird Houses

Completed Bird Houses

With the snow coming down steadily and a foot or more already on the ground, the kids decided to forego a winter color hunt through the backyard woods and just enjoy romping in the new "white stuff". Brrr!

Check out other nature and science studies by clicking on the Winter Wednesday, Outdoor Hour and Science Sunday buttons on my sidebar! 

Weekly Wrap-Up: Days 82-86

I LOVE when my kids get creative! Who would think that recycled cardboard boxes, disposable paper cups, markers, blue painter's tape, scissors, and 2 determined and imaginative kids could create fun toys?! S made a cool 4 coach car train with engine, and learned that attaching boxes together require some ingenuity and stronger tape if you want to pull them around the kitchen floor. ("Where's the DUCK tape, Mom?") C made a house complete with TV, chair, bed, books, table, and frig with food for her new Barbie doll, a gift from a friend. Of course it'll probably take some part of the evening to clean up the box scraps and wadded tape that's spreading out of the dining room and into the kitchen and living room! The aftermath of creativity, right? LOL

So, over the weekend the kids had a blast playing in the quickly melting snow. (We had temperatures in the lower 40s!) They build snow forts and snow people and had fun flinging snow with shovels. S painted me a Toy Story 3 color-by-number painting (although I don't think he followed the numbers). C and S used paper cups to stack in different patterns. J restitched and stained the leather wallet he made. And the kids got to spend Sunday afternoon playing with their buddies.

So, we picked up where we left off before vacation in our subjects, but with a few new and exciting changes to curriculum.

C started using All About Spelling Level 2. Spelling continues to be a struggle for her, so, with the advice of several homeschooling friends, I decided to give AAS a try. It has a multi-sensory approach using magnetic letter and blend tiles, flashcards, dictation, and repetition in short lessons. She completed the first step, a quick review over Level 1. So far so good!

We started doing Winter Wednesday nature studies! Our beautiful male Cardinal is back so we made suet using shortening, bird seed, Cheerios, wheat germ, and uncooked oats, and excitedly watched our "front yard" feeders for non-migrating birds. Check out our notebooking pages and photos here! We had A TON of fun with this project even though it didn't work out exactly as planned! C and S have continued to draw and paint their own bird pictures and all have enjoyed watching the feeders, hoping for a new species to arrive.

C started her History Pockets: Native American unit study with the Inuits and Tlingit tribes, and S started his Winter/Snow lapbook. You can see their mini-books and projects as well as our unit study books here! It's a PERFECT study for this time of year in Maine!

J and C worked out their first composer study with Chopin. We completed notebook pages from Harmony Art Mom and listened to a CD of Chopin's music while completing Language Arts, Math and Science throughout the week.

J also made a pumpkin pie from SCRATCH. Yum!

We had a S-L-O-W Thursday and Friday due to colds (S and I) and fevers (S).

And our some of our regular activities started back up again. J had Boy Scouts this week as well as his Not Math Math class and 2 basketball practices, C had a basketball practice and a "doubleheader" (2 games back-to-back in the SAME evening), and S had OT.

Check out other Weekly Wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and join the Blog Hops by clicking on the Blog Hop Friday Frog and/or Hip Homeschool Hop on my sidebar!