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.

Mahayla on the wildflower scavenger hunt.

Caleb checking off his scavenger hunt list.

Eli scavenging wildflowers to hit with a stick.

After the scavenger hunt, each of the big kids had to go in search of one flower that was new to them to bring back to the blanket.  They had to identify it and write down various characteristics and information on a notebooking page.

Filling out a notebooking page for the flower of their choice.

Caleb's flower = Heal-All

Mahayla's flower = Evening Primrose

As usual, we had such a lovely time basking in God’s creation!  You can find the notebooking pages we used (and more), plus TONS of wildflower activity ideas in the NaturExplorers unit Wonderful Wildflowers.

Some of the hands-on activities included making butter, playing leapfrog, bb gun target practice, sewing, embroidery, knot tying, writing with a homemade quill pen and ink, making candles, knitting, decoupage, making hasty pudding and so much more.

Mahayla’s assigned reading turned into two books for this unit, Calico Bush and Indian Captive.  (She is a voracious reader!)  I only asked her to complete a “report” on one.  I gave her a little book called Book Reports by Frank Schaffer Publications which gave her many ideas for fun book reports (mobiles, dioramas, timelines, etc.)  She chose to write a book report and give an oral presentation.

Caleb’s assigned reading was Witch Hunt: It Happened in Salem Village.  Among many picture books, we also listened to Night Journeys and The Witch of Blackbird Pond on tape in the car.

I was able to find lots of fun freebies online for this unit, too…..

Jamestown Online is a fun game that allows you to make decisions like the original settlers would’ve had to make.  In the end (it only takes a few minutes), you see how well your colony survived based on your choices.  My kids loved it!

Colonial Williamsburg Kids Zone has all sorts of historical online games that also reinforces academic skills.  They are short, sweet and fun!

PBS’s Colonial House site has several fun interactive games and quizzes.  Would you have survived the colony?

Quia has a fun colonial quiz.

This Salem Witch Trial Site has a neat video about the trials.

The Colonial America 1600-1775 site is FULL of great links!

I’ll be sharing a few of our favorite projects from this unit in other posts later this week.  Right now, we’re off to the Revolutionary War!

I had to do the legwork of locating library books about each of the Thirteen Colonies, as well as Roanoke, Jamestown and Plymouth.  But the wonderful activity ideas were ready and waiting in the book.  It turned out to be a lovely way to document a bit of info on each of the colonies we learned about.

Before

After

They took some time to remove as many different seeds and such that they could find and observed each one of them under a magnifying glass.  After talking a bit about this method of seed dispersal, they completed a notebooking page on their finds.

Art study was in the form of an art club meeting this afternoon.  Kim had all sorts planned for the children.  They learned a ton AND had great fun.  Thanks, Mrs. Kim!

The walnut trees are beginning to change colors and drop leaves in Kentucky already.  While they’re still full of nuts, I wanted our nature study time this week to focus on these trees.  (Side note:  Have you visited Homeschool Launch?  I recently set up an account to share my homeschool files and found that it’s a treasure chest of printables and activities created by homeschool moms willing to share their “stuff”!  I found this notebooking page on Sheri’s page at Homeschool Launch.  Thanks, Sheri!)

Mahayla made some Apple Cinnamon Muffins that we took on the road for a modified tea time.  After notebooking pages were filled out using info from the Trees Fandex Field Guide, I read a book about our current artisit – Monet – and a book about our current composer – Beethoven.

Back at home, the kids tried their hands at  Monet’s Impressionist-style outdoor art.  They both found interesting places to sit and paint.

Beethoven’s Symphony #3 is our listening piece of the week.  Something about classical music playing during work time really keeps them focused and peaceful.  Hmmm….I may pipe classical music through the house at all hours of the day!

Here’s what happened.  Children racing around the pond, boys jumping in, muddy water, lots of laughing, and yet lots of exploring still.  I’m not sure much nature journaling was accomplished, but most of the children went home with a cup full of nature to continue exploring.  Their plan was WAY BETTER than mine!  (Oh, and Colleene, SO sorry about the shoes!!

The day started in my house with prayer, a little pond talk and the making of our underwater viewfinders.  (These are easy.  Cut the bottom out of an old container – milk, 2-liter, large yogurt.  If needed, cut a bit of the top out, too, so you can easily look down through the container.  Cover the bottom with plastic wrap, securing with a rubber band or duct tape.  Submerge the plastic side into water and see what you can find under the water!)

Then, off to the pond we went.  The kids had to first walk all the way around the pond, observing life on the edges.  They were supposed to journal something they found.  (Notice these are all girls!)

Then, they used the viewfinders to look down into the water.  Again, they were supposed to journal something they found.

Finally, they used “jilly jars” to scoop water and life out for observation.  Again, they were supposed to journal something they found.  (JIlly Jar Pond Scooper inspiration)

Talk about hands-on learning.  I think we might even be able to call this body-on learning.  They had so much fun and I’m sure learned a thing or two in the process.  At least that’s what I’m still envisioning.

We brought home a bit of moss and pond water.  This morning, we were able to identify at least SIX different forms of life in about a cup’s worth of water!!  For sure we have some tadpoles, water bugs and tiny snails.  There are also tiny, tiny, tiny specks swimming around, tiny, tiny, tiny snake-like creatures and some oblong clear eggs with no observable animals inside.  I can’t wait to see what grows!

Later today, we’re going to do a bit of pond life research.  Below are some great links I found.

For microscopic pond exploration:

Pond LIfe Online Identification

Ameba Worksheet

Pond Water Survey

Song of the Boatman and other Pond Poems is a book full of pond poetry.  Yes, I had even carted this to the pond thinking some sweet child would just love to write poetry in their nature journal.  It wasn’t cracked open until later in the house!

Caleb’s presentation included a talk about astronaut suits (see his helmet and jet pack?), space shuttles, rockets, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, dehydrated food and thrust.

Mahayla’s presentation included information about the sun, other notable stars, constellations, how to use an astronometer to tell the brightness of stars and some information about light years.

Using Exploring Creation with Astronomy as our main text, we did many of the free notebooking pages the author offers on her website.  We also added in a few lapbooking activities and lots of hands on projects.  I put what we had into modified lapbooks.  The lapbooking activities were glued on the first flap, while the notebooking pages were simply stapled together at the top of the other side.

Our trip to the Answers In Geneis Creation Museum’s Planetarium earlier this year was a great addition to this unit!

Here are a few of the fun website games the kids enjoyed during the unit.

Solar System Trading Cards

Problems in Space

Make Your Own Solar System

This past week, I asked them each to choose the civilization that was their favorite and create a presentation about it.  They could choose to present their information any way they liked and we video taped them.

Mahayla created a poster with information about various aspects of the Ancient Greek lifestyle.  She made a discus, drew a wonderful picture of a horse and chariot, set up a book for a visual and dressed in a Greek fashion of the time.  She really took this project seriously and made a great presentation.  )  (Sorry for the dark pictures.  I keep saying we need a new camera and I really mean it!)

Caleb also created a poster, but his was mostly pictures he (we) found on the internet that he labeled.  He made a clay model of the Geat Wall of China, dressed in a robe and served us hot tea.  I thought it was excellent for his first-ever presentation like this.

I really liked doing an end of the unit project and I think the kids did, too.  I think we’ll make these part of each unit this year.  Here are a few pictures of the notebooks we worked on throughout the unit.

Next stop:  Space!

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