Welcome to my 10 Days Series on the topic of nature study! Each of the ten days brings you a creative nature walk idea and a fun follow-up activity to spark your enthusiasm for nature study today! (This post contains affiliate links and links to my business website, Shining Dawn Books.) Why study nature? The…
I {heart} Pinterest! Seriously. It may very well be the greatest invention on the planet. Okay, the greatest recent invention. Through Pinterest, I found (and archived) some fun leafy art lessons to go along with our botany studies this autumn. While we didn’t get to all the wonderful ideas – this autumn – we found…
Caleb (and Eli) and I have been so loving our study of botany! This post highlights one of our activities as we learned about gymnosperms, particularly conifers. Gymnosperms are plants with “naked seeds” that aren’t housed inside a fruit. Conifers (cone-bearing plants) are an example of a gymnosperm. During this lesson, we had collected various…
In continuing our middle school botany study, we’ve been studying trees. A lot. Most of the activities we’ve done have come from the Delightful Deciduous Trees NaturExplorers study. One super-interesting nature walk activity was finding the tap root (main root that grows straight down), lateral roots (large roots that grow outward or laterally) and fibrous…
Every autumn, we enjoy a little pumpkin math! All our children participate according to their abilities – from the 4yo to the 14yo. This year, the 11yo and 14yo were expected to measure with complete accuracy, while the 4yo dabbled in learning how to measure. He used standard (rulers) and non-standard (blocks) measuring tools. I…
Children of the 21st century simply must be knowledgeable about and capable with computers. Besides typing programs and internet research, I like to assign occasional projects that are computer-based. I thought you might like to see the most recent projects… Writing is something that Caleb does NOT like. But, when the writing is (at least…
The Study of a Twig: Botany Nature Study My middle school son has been enjoying a fabulous study of botany. Today’s topic was the twig of a deciduous tree: What is a twig? Where are twigs located on trees? What grows on twigs? How do twigs grow? We first learned about the terminal bud, which…
You cannot even imagine how wonderful our Jr. Master Gardener class (aka Botany Lab) has been. Our horticulture extension agent rocks! We’ve only had four classes so far and have covered tons of topics – plant parts, flower parts, soil types, the water cycle, ecology, organic pesticides and fertilizers, insects and pollination! Everything has been…
It can be difficult during a nature walk to identify lichen vs. moss. These simple descriptions and pictures should help you learn the differences between the two. Lichen vs. Moss: What’s the Difference? Through the course of our nature clubs and writing the NaturExplorers studies, the following question has come up several times. “What’s the…
*Although this post is about home vegetable gardening, you’ll notice some of the pictures are from a field day class my children and I took from the University of Kentucky School of Agriculture. I wanted to encourage you that even those of us who have been gardening for years have room for growth. Your local…
Last week’s nature study compared a new pond structure to the older ponds we have been studying. The kiddos observed the differences in plant life, animal life, general activity and sounds. We also compared how the new pond was man-made, while the others we have observed were natural depressions in the land. You can see…
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…