Posted by Cindy on September 23, 2009
As we were finding giant turkey prints on a farm walk, one of the giant turkeys who had been hiding in some brush decided to get out of dodge. I know you can’t see him very well, but in the middle of the bottom picture is the very fast flying turkey skedattling across the field to safer hiding places.
This is a two-year-old hand beside one of the prints we found.
This is a nine-year-old hand inside an even bigger print.
Bye, bye Mr. Turkey!
NaturExplorers’ Beautiful Birds has great ideas for studying birds of all types!
Posted by Cindy on September 21, 2009
Have you ever noticed that God made seeds with adaptations that give them the best opportunity to make it to fertile land and grow into new plants? Hooks, wings, feather, rolling shells, floating bodies and yummy fruit whose seed will be pooped out are several examples. We took time last week during our nature walk to observe seed adaptations using the notebooking page found in the NaturExplorer Fruit and Nut study.
Here’s just a sampling of the seeds we found. This time of year is wonderful for finding fruits, nuts and seeds!
Okay, not a seed, fruit or nut, but I couldn’t resist this picture! This friendly little Fritillary spent several minutes fluttering between this Queen Anne’s Lace and a stalk of Yellow Ironweed.
Posted by Cindy on September 19, 2009
Many people think fungi are only around during the wet and warm spring months. How are these for August and September fungi finds??
Unidentified Polypore
Silky Parchment
Mustard-yellow Polypore
Tapioca Slime
Likely another image of Silky Parchment
Likely some sort of Carbon Mushroom or a Slime Mold
Likely a Jack O'Lantern or False Chantrelle
This area of fruiting body was huge!
I have no idea what this is, but it looked like a mold.
Hairy Parchment
Possibly Carbon Balls or Red Cushion Hypoxylon
Possibly Bear Lentinus
I took these pictures near the edge of a creek on rotting logs and on a walk in the woods. They were everywhere! Finding fungi is one of my new nature study passions ever since writing the Fungus Among Us NaturExplorer unit! Since there are many thousand varieties of fungi, it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly what you find. But that’s okay, just seeing them is enough for me!
Posted by Cindy on September 17, 2009
So sorry I’ve been MIA for several days. We’ve been enjoying lots of pretty afternoons and evenings outside and I’ve let lots of things indoors slack. Oops! Gotta enjoy these perfect days while you can, though!
Last week we finished a unit on US Government and Civics using The United States Government 7th-12th grade lapbooking unit from Knowledge Box Central. It was a great refresher for me and a super way to teach my children everything from the history of the Constitution to the design and procedures of our government to the rights and responsibilities we have as citizens. We should all be teaching US Government and Civics anyway, but in light of so many political issues in our country right now, it’s extremely important to teach our children the fundamentals of how our government is supposed to work and what we can and should do about it when it isn’t working like it should. (Sorry for the run-on sentence and the soap box.)
Anywho, here are some pictures of our lapbook.
To be sure they understood the wealth of information learned during the unit, I gave the kiddos a test that you can download from my Homeschool Launch page. Mahayla scored 100% without help. Caleb was allowed to use his lapbook when he came across a tough question. With the help of his lapbook, he scored 100%, too!
We’ve moved on to the first of a four-part energy/physics unit – focusing on the definition of energy, heat and electricity. Some of our resources are posted in the sidebar. I’ll post about our fun soon!
Posted by Cindy on September 7, 2009
I posted this over at Shining Dawn Books, but wanted to be sure everyone has a chance to see it since it’s proven to be such a super and simple help during our nature walks…
Here’s a quick field guide tip that our family has used ever since the kiddos were little. Before they could write, or even draw very well, I wanted a way for them to note the plants or animals we had identified. I pulled out a sheet of tiny incentive stickers and placed a sticker on each picture as we came across something during our nature walks.
As the children have grown, we haven’t stopped marking our field guides with stickers. It’s proven to be a great tool for all of us in remembering what we’ve already identified and in learning names of plants or animals more quickly. I keep a small sheet of stickers tucked into every one of our field guides for quick and easy marking as we walk.
Can you see the three stickers?
We try to place the sticker so that it doesn't block any of the image.
Also….
If you enjoy listening to books on tape, check out my review of Your Story Hour CD’s over at The Curriculum Choice!
