Nature Journalling: Trees

We finally made it to the park today, despite Bella being up with a stomach ache half the night. She did well and we had a marvelous time. First we fed the ducks and geese a bit. Rice chex. Bella wanted to feed the cereal directly to them. She chased a mallard around in circles trying to get him to take the food from her hand, and finally, before I could stop her, offered it to a Canadian goose, who wasn't very careful about how he snatched it. She was unruffled.

Next we set to work finding examples of the three types of conifer leaves: needle-like, scale-like, and awl-like. The conifers were far outnumbered by deciduous trees, but we, amazingly found the three different varieties all in the same spot. Ethan and Anna Kate drew the different needles, also observing the pollen cones and seed cones and drawing those. Our tree identification book left much to be desired, so they were also drawing the trees' shapes, needles in actual size, and as many other details as possible in hopes that a ranger at the ranger station might be able to identify them for us. As they were finishing, a ranger came in with a school group to the picnic area behind us, and I ventured over to ask him. He identified the trees for us and also gave me a mini history lesson on the tragedy of the American chestnut tree. Fascinating stuff.

Rose was being Rose this whole time, living in her world of daisies and rainbows and drawing in her nature journal. I'm pretty sure she drew a goose - as for the rest, I'm sure it will be a surprise. She also found another tent caterpillar. There's always a good supply of those, which is probably a good thing, since she has a tendency to love them to death.

We then began to try to identify some angiosperm trees. Once again the guide was not a great deal of help. We managed to identify oaks,maples, and sweetgums, and learn about the flowers on dogwoods. We hiked around the lake, and found lovely pink flowers that looked like honeysuckle - and later at home discovered, they were indeed wild pink honeysuckle - pink?! who knew?

Bella enjoyed picking up random rocks, continuing to make friend with any ducks she met and feeding them with the "one for Bella, one for the duck" method. The children had great fun sliding out over the lake on a fallen log until their feet touched the water. They decided that they were lucky to be homeschooled because school kids would not have been allowed to do this. Some days you win...

Thunderstorms

We had the most wonderful thunderstorm here last night. It was big and bright and windy and noisy. I don't remember ever being afraid of thunderstorms. By the time I was a teenager, I found them utterly irresistable. They drew me out to the porch swing and sometimes I even danced in them - yeah, that would be my one of my few forages into adolescent foolishness - dancing in thunderstorms.

I don't do that anymore, even though I still want to. I did, however, grab a fleece blanket, and sit on my front porch wrapped in it, breathing deeply of the wonderful wet spring smells, and feeling the cool wind whipping spray on my face, and watching the jagged streaks, counting seconds and miles between them.

Today I lost my power due to some large trees weakened by the storm taking some power poles with them as they fell.

I couldn't do the laundry or run the dishwasher. And I had to reschedule our book club's garden tea party.

And that storm was so worth it.

Nature Journals

We started our nature journals in regular three prong pocket portfolios. The pockets were handy, the covers got dirty, and the prongs made it difficult to move pages around. I though a flexible three ring binder becasue it was lighter, but they are very difficult to write in. So my current recommendation is a 1/2 - 1" hard cover three ring binder, this works for us because we add projects and worksheets.


This post is making me batty because some of my favorite pages, especially for little journallers are downloaded on my computor, but I cannot find the original sources to share with you. Often the best pages for littles are just plain paper, or for fun simple bordered paper. Ask what they see, hear, smell, feel, and write it down for them. Encourage them to draw whatever capture their interest. And get some page protectors so that treasures found can be pressed and saved.

Now here are some other great resources for starting your nature journals:

Head to Your Nature Journal to get inspired and connect with multiple resources.

My favorite of Meddybemps Nature Notebook Pages is the list page - we keep it in the back of our jounals to use as a life list to keep track of each new animal or plant that we find or see for the first time.

Donna Young has nature journal sheets for full or half sized binders.

Cornell's Feeder Birds Coloring Book is wonderful. It has nice drawings with a series of questions to answer about markings, size, etc. I printed several birds that I thought we were likely to see, and when we have a chance to have an extended observation of one of them, we pull the sheet out of the nature journal and fill it in.

Notebooking Pages has some really nice nature journal pages. Her feather pages were a free download at one time, and I use them for feather collecting by stapling small zipper sandwich bags to them for the feather.

Currclick has some free products, including Journal Junction's Signs of Spring, Cedar Tree Press' Nature Journal Pages, and Notebooking Nook's bird notebooking pages.

Jimmie's Collage has unthemed, pretty notebooking pages.

Nature Detectives is a wonderful website with hundreds of printables. The only drawback is that it is part of the UK's Woodland Trust, so many of the trees and animals are not native to the US. Download the

Some imaginative pages from Wisconsin

The American Museum of Natural History's Online Field Journals are great for identifying just about anything.

Exploring Nature Educational Resources are just that, topically listed.

Owl Day

I've missed doing themed school days. It's a lot harder to fit in when multiplication and writing and so many other things second and fourth graders need to know overshadow the simple joys of early school days. We did a lot of these days when Ethan was younger, now I try to squeeze them in when I can, especially for Rosie, who ought to be doing fun things for kindergarten.

Sooo... Ethan is rather obsessed with owls right now. They are his favorite animal and he's really nature-obsessed anyway. He constantly is working on decorating his room to look more like nature with stuffed animals, vines, and other natural things. He recently confiscated two fans that I was getting ready to put in the attic and positioned them in his room so that he could simulate windy days.

When the National Wildlife Federation magazines came for October and Your Big Backyard was completely owl themed and Ranger Rick had an owl feature too, I knew that it was time for an owl day. So yesterday, we did our usual math and breakfast Scripture reading, then launched into our theme.

First we watched this video of Owl Moon:



Next Anna Kate read us Snow Moon, its wonderful illustrations making her giddy with delight.

Then I read Baby Owl's Rescue, and Rosie read the simple Owls Live in Trees.

They watched a Birds of Prey video, then read their NWF magazines (wow! didn't know all that cool owl stuff was there!).

Ethan read The Life Cycle of an Owl.

They watched Animal Profiles: Owls (sorry most of these videos are on the Discovery Education member website that our state pays for) and National Geographic Kids Wild Detective: Night Owls.

Then we grabbed a quick lunch and headed to a local college campus for the kids to ride their scooters (we've been trying to get out as many days as possible for some exercise) and to collect and observe different types of leaves for our botany studies. We left the scooters to take a nature trail that turned out to be at least three times longer than I'd expected. Ethan's leg hurt, and sleepy Bella was cranky and bit heavy in the Moby, but Anna Kate kept exclaiming that it was the best nature walk ever as we found wildflowers and leaves and pincones.

Not long before we made it back to where we'd started we found these gorgeous trees. Look for Rose at the base of the tree for some size perspective:

We made it back home and put Bella to bed and the children still had happy hours to spend outside with their friends riding scooters, playing basketball, and enjoying the tree house. We topped it off with Rose's favorite barbeque pork riblets and some owl cupcakes (cupcake topper template here, addtional party details and products here.)

We like to do bat watches, particularly when driving home at twilight. Night before last, we had a bat watch and saw several, but Rosie kept missing them. She was particularly distressed as Anna counted off "14, 15, 16" (I only saw two.) She never could see any, so tonight as darkness fell, I swooped her up from her chair at the table and carried her across the street to the field and we watched and waited.

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We were finally rewarded by a bat swooping right over our heads! Rose was a happy girl.

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This morning she said to me, "I loved Owl Day - can we do it again today?" I promised a Bat Day soon.

The best thing for stings

As we're planning an at home vacation week soon that includes lots of outdoor adventures, and because it seems like yellow jackets get crankier as the season wears on, I've restocked my favorite bee sting remedy. These little swabs have a relatively strong plastic case that peals off in the back so that you can remove a tube of benzocaine gel that is the best at relieving the pain of a sting. My grandfather used these when I got stung as a little girl. Children can rub the gel on themselves, which seems to be less traumatic to them, and it numbs the area quickly.

They're hard to find, though. I get mine at Walmart, but they're out of stock frequently, and I have to pick them up at the pharmacy counter these days.

By the way, they fit in those bandage boo boo boxes. (Which they apparently don't make anymore, sorry. They were hard boxes the kids bandages, band-aids, I think, came in one year, they opened like a case.) I use them as portable first aid kids with a variety of band-aids, especially knee sized ones, sealed medicine tablets, a small tube of antibiotic ointment, and a couple Sting-Kill swabs.

Dove Fledglings in the Birdbath

They hang out on my deck waiting for their parents to come feed them. Then it's a jumble of four doves as they try to outdo each other in the food fight.

Of Birds and Butterflies...and Roses

I love to hear the sound of the birds singing outside my kitchen window. They just love the simple homemade birdbath that sits on the deck rail. The wrens are my favorite. We heard them singing yesterday and they entertained us yet again with their quirky little dance. On the rim sipping water, hop around the rim, splashing in the water, jumping out, sitting on the rail preening until they're all puffed up, jumping back on the rim, sipping, splashing - round and round they can go for five or ten minutes. Then a wood thrasher came careening down to the rail, did a double take at the sight of the wrens and fluttered back out of there only to return to shoo them off. I was happy to see this new visitor, but not pleased that he scared of my favorite little Carolina wrens. They, however quickly returned.

I often see a pair of finches a few times a day, and a mockingbird comes to drink. It's a treat to see the wrens. The children all vie for the limited counter and stool space in order to see out the window. Yesterday it inspired some child-led bird study. In other news, I'm astounded at the variety of butterflies that I'm finding now that I've taken the time to notice.

Two more shots of the Gulf Fritillary

unidentified swallowtail with a torn wing

and one that is whole

Common Buckeye

Fiery Skipper (I think)

Two beautiful Roses

P.S. I did all of this earlier and blogger completely lost it and I had to do it over. Arrrrrgh!

Today's visitors

the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Long Tailed Skipper (?)

The children believe that butterflies are really fairies.

All photographs on this blog are copyright by the owner.

Winged Visitors

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Gulf Fritillary

Tawny Emperor

My butterfly bush usually has different varieties of swallowtails, but lately I've noticed a few different kinds. Yesterday I decided to shoot them and go online to identify them. Now I'm inspired to keep up the butterfly documentation and even some other nature journalling. Stay tuned for some really cool spider pics.

The Harvest Moon

CC - maxedaperture

The harvest moon is the first full moon after the autumnal equinox. (I just learned about that from one of the fall books I was reading to my kids!) This year's harvest moon is on Wednesday. I'm going to see if my camera has the capacity to take pictures like this - I bet yours does, Rachel! Now to think of a good way to celebrate the harvest moon...

For more information on the harvest moon try Earth and Sky. To find out all of the 2007 moon names go to SPACE.com. And to find out what a blue moon is, check out Wikipedia - it might not be what you've heard.

Don't forget to fill your feeders

According to the National Wildlife Federation, March is actually the hardest month for birds. Their food supply is very low and the new year's fresh supply of fruit and insects hasn't arrived yet. So don't forget to keep your feeders stocked.