Posted by Cindy on October 22, 2008
Our Creation Club met for the last time until spring. (Boo Hoo) This month’s focus was on trees and we were as busy as beavers!
As a warm-up activity, each child was asked to find a leaf from any tree in the area. They had to remember which tree it came from! Then, they exchanged leaves with someone and had to located the tree their new leaf came from. The partners worked together to give hints to each other if needed.
I gave a simple explanation of why leaves change colors in the fall while the kids took notes on a notebooking page.
Then, we played a game to warm up their detail finding skills. Everyone teamed up in partners again. The first partner had to close their eyes, while the second partner led them to a tree. With eyes still closed, the first partner had to touch the tree remembering as much detail as possible. The first partner then led them back to the starting point with eyes still closed. The first partner then had to try to locate the tree with eyes open. Fun!
Now the kids were ready to “adopt” a tree. Using a notebooking page from Considering God’s Creation, they had to notice all sorts of things about their tree such as bark style, tree shape, leaf type, leaf shape and more. On the back of this page, I added a few more things for them to do like measuring the circumference of the trunk, tracing a leaf and coloring in detail, sketching something they found using a magnifying glass and such. You can see this simple page here if you like.
Using watercolors, they had to paint a picture of their tree. We used our imaginations a bit since the drought has really caused all of our trees to lose their brilliant colors already.
Then, they were asked to take a few quiet minutes to write a poem about their tree or a prayer to God in thanksgiving of trees.
Finally, we took a short walk to some tree stumps to see if we could figure out the age of any of the trees that were once there by counting the rings.
This was two hours of our day that were definitely not wasted! Thank you , God, for your glorious creation!
Posted by Cindy on August 20, 2008
Our first Fine Arts Tuesday has come and gone. What a lovely day it was!
We will soon be listening to Peggy’s Violin: A Butterfly in Time (which is a wonderful story of the life of a violin, by the way!) Woven into the story are several classical music pieces by famous composers. One of the first is “Canon” by Pachelbel. Before heading downstairs for our artist tea, we listened to “Canon” on the computer. The kids were very excited to know this piece was played at my wedding!
Then we headed downstairs for some peppermint tea and cookies.
We did a picture study of “Lilacs in a Vase” by Manet. After a brief biography session, we used the idea from Discovering Great Artists to create melted crayon still-life paintings.
Caleb chose to do a still-life of red hot peppers in a vase, while Mahayla found some clover in the yard.
They had fun, but we had to continually stop painting to re-warm the crayons in the oven since we don’t own a warming tray. (Don’t use a good muffin tin – it will never be the same again!)
We didn’t do a morning nature walk this week because our Creation Club met in the afternoon. Here are a few pictures from the wildflower walk and journaling time.
I can’t wait to keep you posted on our Tuesday learning! I think Tuesdays will turn out to my favorite day of the homeschool week – never mind the kids!
Posted by Cindy on July 23, 2008
July’s meeting was less of a nature day and more a celebration of water. We had a water field day! Each of the moms brought a water game or two which turned out to be tons of fun.
Let’s see, the kids played a relay carrying containers of water on their heads, a sponge and bucket relay, and competed in a water obstacle course. They had to try to keep water in their cups while jumping rope ten times, and they had a water balloon launching contest. They also had a frozen t-shirt contest, trying to be the first to thaw and put on a wet t-shirt that had been folded and frozen solid. And apparently, it doesn’t matter where the water is, kids will jump in and have fun (see the cow watering container below. It was clean!) Here are a few pictures from the day.
And look! My friend, MonkeyX4, brought me a whole box of cucumbers since we haven’t been having any luck with them this year. I was able to can 14 quarts of dill pickles this morning! Thank you, D!!
Posted by Cindy on July 19, 2008
Our Creation Club (nature club) is going really well. The kids are having fun and seem to be learning so much. We get to learn outside and, if nothing else, that sparks great enthusiasm for the activities. 
During the nature workshop at the CHEK convention, I talked about some of the resources I use for choosing activities during our club meetings. I forgot to add a few of those resources to the workshop handout, so I promised I’d post them here.
The book that got the ball rolling for the club is the Creation Club Idea Book. In it are all sorts of ideas for particular broad themes in nature. You will find Bible references, active games, craft ideas and more.
During our club, though, I typically try to focus in on one or two aspects within a broad theme. For instance, instead of a study on water, we studied ponds. In fact, we even limited that study to life around a pond and just within the water’s edges. Because the Creation Club Idea Book’s themes are broad, I use other resources to round out a particular study’s focus.
Of course, the #1 resource is the internet. I’m amazed at the worksheets, diagrams, activity ideas and information that pops up when I do a quick search of the topic!
The #2 resource is the library. Depending on the topic, I’ve found all sorts of activity books and information books that fit the bill perfectly.
Below are some other books I’ve found useful for adding activities that are suitable for groups.
I’d LOVE to hear about a nature club that you start. If you already take part in a nature club, I’d love to hear about that, too!
FYI – I’m working on another post to answer some MSG questions and pass along a few recipes. I probably won’t be able to complete it until next week sometime, so stay tuned. I’ve really appreciated those of you who have shared – even the ones who disagree with me about MSG’s overall negative effect in our food supply. 
Posted by Cindy on June 24, 2008
Yep, we’re still as busy as beavers around here! I thought I’d stop in for a few minutes to show you some of the fun from our Creation Club this month…..
We met at the local cemetery. Cemeteries are wonderful for nature study! Typically, they have a huge variety of trees, shrubs, fungi, weathering and even critters to be found. With tweezers and baggies in hand, the kids’ first job was to go on a Tweezer Trek. Basically, they were asked to collect anything and everything nature related that they could pick up with tweezers. We had a show-n-tell time and studied a few things under the magnifying glasses.
The next activity was to dissect flowers. Thanks to a couple local nurseries, we had an abundance of flowers to use. Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Botany has a wonderful flower dissection tutorial that we went through. Before digging in, though, we read The Reason For a Flower and drew/labeled a flower diagram. As you can see, our little botanists were very serious about their dissection and recording what they had found.
Here are a few great sites to go along with flower dissection…
Virtual Flower Dissection
Color Photos of Flower Parts
Flower Dissection Lab Activity
ETA: Since the original post, Shining Dawn Books was born and NaturExplorers Wonderful Wildflowers was written where you can find OODLES more creative ideas for individual or group study on the topic of wildflowers!
