Nature Study: Squirrels!

We have an abundance of Northern Gray Squirrels. A whole bunch! And they're feeding antics are QUITE interesting! So, this week's nature study focused on our backyard SQUIRRELS.

Squirrel Eating Seeds and Nuts from the Ground

6 of our Regular Squirrel Visitors

Gray Squirrel Tidbits

• they weigh approximately 16-18 ounces and are 12-21 inches in length 
• their gray bushy tails are "bordered" by white
• their daily movements are within 200 yards
• females have 1-2 litters each year with 2-3 young born in each litter
• each squirrel may bury up to 1000 nuts a year
• they are primarily herbivores
• they may live up to 6 years in the wild
• they prefer to live in woodland

Look-out Squirrel

Climbing down the Tree

Jumping to the Ground

Eating Food from the Feeder

During the week we noticed one of our larger squirrels had a missing tail! S/he has a 2-3" stump so the kids have affectionately called it "Stumpy". We talked about how important a squirrel's tail is to its survival - balance, agility, warmth, protection - and wonder how it'll continue to thrive.

And had a few QUICK glances of our fleeting, timid little red squirrel.

Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel Sharing a Feast with a Blue Jay

We also observed a flock of MALE Dark-eyed Juncos, 7-8 Blue Jays, a few Black-capped Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, and our lone male Northern Cardinal. We were happy to see our beautiful Cardinal again! And a new species: a Red-wing Blackbird! We're VERY excited to see this bird as he's a migrator and a sure sign of Spring!

Our Books for this Study

J's Notebook Page

C's Notebook Page

S's Notebook Page

Special Snack for our Friends - it Took 30 Seconds to be Found

Check out other nature studies (and Science fun) at The Outdoor Hour Challenge, Winter Wednesday, Nature Connections, and Science Sunday! Click the sidebar buttons!

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!