Posted by Cindy on July 12, 2007
I need structure. My children do, too. A couple of years ago, I tried giving them blank paged notebooks for nature study, and, well, the pages are still mostly blank. Since we aren’t naturally gifted in sketching or drawing, nor do we eloquently come up with poetry or wise words about nature, those blank pages were intimidating. So, being the organized creature that I am, I put together nature notebooks full of pre-made notebooking sheets and ideas for nature study, with tabbed dividers to boot!
These notebooks have worked so well! When we go on nature walks, I can look through the sections to see what topic we might need to focus on. If the kiddos want to go on their own nature walk, they can easily find an appropriate page. Many of the notebooking pages have lines on them for neat handwriting. Some of them have no lines, in case we just want to draw. Some of them have places for scientific names to be added at home. Some are even like checklists. We have a variety of pages available to fit the variety of notebooking moods we have!
Here are samples of some of the pages in our notebooks. I don’t remember where I found many of them, but here are a few great resources: Considering God’s Creation (awesome checklist-type pages), Notebooking Nook (they have freebies), NotebookingPages.com (they have freebies, too), this Yahoo group has free pages, and Jennie Fulbright has notebooking pages that go along with her science curriculum books – some of which will work in nature notebooks.
The categories I included are plants, insects, birds, animals, rocks, weather/sky, other.
I even included some ideas to get them going on their own. I try to copy these sorts of things as I come across them, so I don’t remember where any of them came from. A few of the ideas include:
*Tweezer Trek – collect only things in a baggie that can picked up with a tweezer, then notebook about the experience.
*Puddle Walk – after a rain, notebook about something you find in a puddle
*Measure Me Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list of things to collect that measure various lengths, then notebook about the experience
*Texture Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list to find certain textures, then notebook about the findings
*Shape Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list to find certain shapes, then notebook about the findings
Posted by Cindy on July 9, 2007
One of my best real-life friends, Melissa, has a great post about birds on her blog. She gives a recipe for homemade suet and a couple of websites about bird watching. Her ideas go along with our bird center perfectly!
Posted by Cindy on
Did you know your children can make some serious money at the fair? This was our first year for entering any projects, so Mahayla only entered her basket and lamp. But she won 1st place in her class for each project and earned $8.00. She also won reserve grand champion for her lamp! Think about how much she could’ve won had she entered art projects, knitting, crochet, baking, canning, flowers, vegetables….!! At $4.00 for 1st, $3.00 for 2nd and $2.00 for 3rd place, a kid could earn quite a lot. Next year, we’ll plan better!
We always have fun at the fair. It’s getting more and more expensive to go ($8.00 a person), so we try to pick the night when the most fun activities are going on. This year we enjoyed a horse show, cattle show, alligator show, goat show, talent contest, petting zoo and, ofcourse, the rides. I even won a drawing for three jars of jam from a local farm!
Posted by Cindy on July 8, 2007
Wanna fun project for a Dad and son to do together? Building a miniature rocket is just that kind of project.
Building the rocket took only a 1/2 an hour on each of two days. (It took two days because of cement drying time.) This little rocket went something like 750 ft into the air! Luckily for us, we live on a farm. If you live in a neighborhood, do the 3…2…1 lift-off at a park or something with lots of room. Otherwise, your little rocket is likely to land on someone’s roof a few house over!
I found the rocket and rocket engine at Walmart and bought them for Caleb’s birthday. I think it probably cost about $15.00 total. The rocket can be launched over and over, as long as you’re willing to do some minor rebuilding each time.
Posted by Cindy on July 5, 2007
Here’s the newest summer center at our house – Birds!
The box of books on the right includes nonfiction books about all sorts of birds – everything from birds we see around here to penguins to toucans. I’ve also included some really good children’s literature that have birds as characters – Make Way For Ducklings, Angelo, and The Raft to name a few.
The books laying out are bird identification and drawing guides. These will be used with their nature notebooks as they go bird watching. That just reminded me, I need to set out binoculars. I’ll do a post soon about the nature notebooks. I just love these! (Ignore the toes in the picture!) 
I found the little birdhouses at The Dollar Tree for……….$1.00! I’ve also set out a bird memory game and some bird activity sheets that I found in Considering God’s Creation. Finally, the game in the back on the left is really pushing it to fit into the bird theme. It’s a spelling game with bird pictures on the back of the cards! Ha Ha! Whatever works, right?
