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 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!
Posted by Cindy on August 31, 2009
Here are the wildflower resources we used over the past month of nature study.
Posted by Cindy on August 28, 2009
I admit that wildflowers are quite possibly my favorite of all nature studies. I’m always in awe of God’s creativeness, beauty and majesty through such delicate little things like wildflowers. I’m also amazed at how each season presents me with new flowers that I’ve never noticed before – each with awesome characteristics that are different from any other flower.
A field of wildflowers can move me, while a single wildflower observed closely makes me marvel at the constant, yet diverse design that makes a flower a flower. And to think that wildflowers are “planted by God” reminds me that He cares about me enough to bring me flowers!
Last week, we took a very up-close and personal look at wildflowers through comparisons and dissection. There was no long nature walk involved – only long enough to collect several flower samples to bring back inside. Since the yard wasn’t off limits for picking, the kiddos brought in a couple of flowers that aren’t considered wild. No matter, it made for a great opportunity to discuss the difference between the two!
The first activity was to compare two completely different flowers for similarities and differences. This is another of the notebooking pages that comes with the Wonderful Wildflowers NaturExplorers unit.
The second activity was flower dissection to identify all the parts of a flower.
We own a very old dissection kit that made the dissection not only easy, but exciting for the kids.
We were able to see the ovules (eggs) in the ovary on this hollyhock (not a wildflower).
Eli always gets in on the action!
The third activity was drawing the cross-section of a flower and labeling all the parts.
And the final activity was to complete a watercolor still-life of wildflowers. We have been studying Cezanne, who painted several still-life works, so this tied art and nature study together quite well. And to get composer study in the mix, we listened to a CD of Chopin (our composer of the month.)
“Wildflowers in the Rain”
