A Child's Garden

A Winter Battle Re-enactment

2013-01-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

Today was a very relaxed day in our household. We had breakfast for lunch (hash browns, maple-y bacon, scrambled eggs and homemade lemonade... mmm...), filled the bird feeders and sorted some laundry for future washing, later tonight. My little guy and I spent time sorting LEGOs for a blog post on patterns, and then he spent the remainder of the afternoon creating and filming World War II battles in the back yard, using a slew of little plastic Army men he has collected over the years.

While he was working, it began to snow. It made for cold working conditions, but added to the authenticity of his little battle scenes.

Here is a photo log of his afternoon (guest "blogged" by the cinematographer, himself)... We submitted this post to both Carnival of Homeschooling and Top Ten Tuesday.

Ten Helpful Hints to Make a Perfect Stop-Motion Battle Re-enactment

by Guest Blogger, Malik B., Age 9

Hint #1:

The key to stop motion is to have a camera with plenty of memory space, because you will need to take a LOT of pictures. If you run out of room in the beginning, it will take you a long time to delete extra pictures.

I have a V-Tech Kidzoom camera. It holds thousands of pictures and also takes videos.

Videos take a lot of space out of your memory, so I recommend not to have videos on your camera when you want to take stop motion photos.

It was very cold and snowing, so I decided to name the movie, Plastic Army Men: The Cold War.

Hint #2:

The second thing you need to know is how to do stop motion. The way most people do it is to take a picture, move the figure a little bit in the direction you want it to go, then take another picture. When you're in Microsoft Movie Editor, and you put the photos together, it will look like the guy is gliding right across the screen.

If you want to see a great stop motion video, look up Plastic Apocalypse, by Theakker3B.

Hint #3:

The next thing you should know is how to make home-made special effects. I learned how to do these things by watching a You Tube video called, The Making of 'Bricks of War,' by Kooberz.

In the video, he shows a clip of how he makes "blood" splatter on his lens without messing up his camera lens. He suggested placing plastic wrap in front of your lens to cover it.

Hint #4:

For blood spatter on the lens, I put paint on the plastic wrap covering the lens. You can also use red clay, which sticks better, but doesn't look as realistic as the watery paint.

Since it was very cold outside, my paint wash container became a slushy, and the wet paint froze, too. I had to breathe on it to thaw it.

Hint #5:

This is what the picture of the blood spatter effect looks like, after I took the picture of the tan soldier (hint #4).

I realized I used a little too much paint, so I deleted this photo and took another one. If you wait to check when you get ready to edit, it's too difficult to set up your scene perfect again.

Hint #6:

Like my favorite filmer, Theakker3B, I take various natural objects and turn them into other objects. Because I didn't have a plastic sniper post, I took the open cabin on my truck (see Hint #2) and used three sticks, taped together, to make a platform that I put on top of the cabin.

If you don't have something, you can always make a makeshift version.

Hint #7:

This is the inside of one of my Army men storage containers. It's a mixture of landscape items, plus tan and green soldiers.

Another key to stop motion battle scenes, depending on your scene, is to always have lots of Army men available, plus paint and water if you like my idea for the special effects.

Hint #8:

Here you can see that I have several tan soldiers out. Some of them are covered in red paint, due to "battle injuries."

Sometimes I have broken pieces off my Army men, to make battle scenes look more realistic. Or, if you don't want to destroy your things, you can use two identical men, bury the chest and head of one partway in the dirt, then bury the legs of another in the dirt.

Hint #9:

It's always nice to have an audience while you work. This is one of my cats, Cody Bear, who is watching me work from under the patio table.

Notice that she is getting covered with snow.

My mom was also watching as she filled the bird feeders.

Hint #10:

[From Mom!]

You go through a lot of batteries during this process, so stock up.

We discovered that you can buy bags of plastic Army men for a dollar at most dollar stores. We have tan, green and some pink (?) ones, plus a few blue. It's ok to have multiple sets -- you just make bigger armies.

There's Still Time!

Don't forget about the Mid-Winter Give-away...

Click over for more details on how to enter!

Time for a Winter Give-away!

2013-01-09T03:43:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of our sister site, Simple Science Strategies, here is a great give-away to bring in the new year:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

See "Time for a Mid-Winter Give-away!" for more details about these two great e-Books.

Starting an Animal Survey: Winter Birds and Friends

2013-01-09T02:23:00.000-08:00

Watching Our Birds, All Year Long

We love to watch our birds. With each season, we change our offerings to suit the birds that come with that season: suet for the woodpeckers in the winter; berries and peanuts for the bluebirds in the spring; oranges for the orioles in June; hummingbird nectar for the hummers in July.

It is exciting to see those birds (and other creatures) that signal changes in the seasons. To chronicle the visitors in our yard, we started a year-long animal survey to usher in 2013.

Our survey sheet -- good for a year of viewing! (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2012

We put together an animal survey sheet, where we can list the visitors to our bird feeders, brush pile and water sources, then check off which months we have observed them. To mark shifts in populations, we are entering a number to show the greatest number of each species observed at any given time (similar to what is done to measure relative quantities of birds in Cornell's Project Feeder Watch).

(Click on link to download a copy for your own study.)

The First Week of Our Survey

The first week of January was a busy one. Here is our list of animal visitors (not counting our own pets, of course -- wild animals, only!), in decreasing order of their abundance (NOTE: We noted the maximum number of each animal that was seen at a given time, to monitor the relative abundance of the species for each month):

Dark-eyed juncos were our most abundant visitors this week.

Dark-eyed junco (7)
Black-capped chickadee (6)
Tufted titmouse (4)
White-tailed deer (4)
White-throat sparrow (4)
Blue jay (2)
Great horned owl (2)
Mourning dove (2)
Carolina wren (2)
Northern cardinal (2)
Chipping sparrow (2)
Gray squirrel (2)
White-breasted nuthatch (1)
Red-bellied woodpecker (1)
Downy woodpecker (1)
Northern flicker (1)
White-crowned sparrow (1)

Nifty Sightings for the Week

Click on the link for more information.

I always love having the chickadees perch inches from my nose and scold me when the feeder runs out of seeds. But there were some other noteworthy observations this week:

... the junco with leucism -- partial albinism that caused its head and cheek feathers to be completely white, and its sides to be tan in color {my youngest son and I spent a lot of time trying to identify it with our field guides before I found a web article about this form of albinism};
... the great horned owls who perched in the hickory overlooking the feeding area during the night time hours and into the dawn, hooting and hunting {our cats are not happy about being kept in at night the past few weeks};
... the pair of wrens that we watched exploring the inner depths of a folded camp chair on our front porch (you know they'll nest anywhere). {My eldest son and I sat in the car after going to the gym, so we wouldn't disturb the busy pair}

What We Offered Our Feathered and Furry Friends

Click on the link for more information.

We had run out of black thistle seed, so we had filled both our tube feeder and the regular feeder with mixed seed, and placed some stale pancakes in a suet feeder (as an alternative to putting them on the ground, which attracts our own dog before the outdoor critters get to the food). We bought some berry-flavored suet dough (loved by the titmice), and threw bread crusts out on the ground.

Read-Alouds to Go With Your Studies

Our two favorite animal books, the Burgess Bird Book for Children and the Burgess Animal Book for Children, are shown here. Click on the links in the captions for more information about these wonderful classics.

[This post was linked to the following blog carnivals:]

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Winter Bird: Chickadee
Simple Science Strategies: Patterns
A Carnival of Homeschooling

Squirrel and Bird Nest Study

2012-12-20T13:42:00.000-08:00


Bare trees reveal squirrel nests. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2012.

Last month, we spent a lot of time exploring the world of fall, seeing treasures revealed when the leaves fall off the trees. One unexpected sighting was a massive squirrels' nest, in a red oak near our driveway.

Our discovery led my youngest son to request that we re-read The Burgess Animal Book for Children (BABC), from the beginning. If you are following along in BABC, this study would accompany the section on squirrels (the third "study" in the book).

Read along for a nature study on squirrels nests, which includes many ideas we've used over the years.

Read-Alouds:

Our favorite animal study read-aloud!

Sometimes our natures studies happen by accident (such as our discovery of this squirrel's nest). Other times, a read-aloud piques our interest. Our favorite nature study read-aloud is The Burgess Animal Book for Children. And it fits perfectly as a read-aloud if you are using the Exploring Creation through Zoology series, which focus on animal classification, as the BABC chapters are laid out to introduce children to animals as they are related to one another. And who doesn't like Peter Rabbit?

If you want to fill a book basket with books to go along with this study, here are some of our family favorites:

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, by Beatrix Potter (my youngest brother was a big Beatrix Potter fan)
Miss Suzy, by Miriam Young (my own childhood favorite)
Rakkety Tam (Redwall Series #17), by Brian Jacques (a favorite of my eldest son)
Nuts to You!, by Lois Ehlert (all my kids loved Lois Ehlert's collage illustrations - a great thing to try for your creative arts connections, if you use the "Five in a Row" approach to homeschooling)

For our squirrel nest study, we just enjoyed Chapters 4-8 of The Burgess Animal Book for Children. Again!

My little guy grew up surrounded by technology, and enjoys reading books on our NOOK Color. The e-Books compatible with the NOOK are available at Barnes & Noble. We noticed that there are several free ones with great photos of squirrels:

The Squirrels of Summer, by Robert Mason
Everybody Loves Squirrels, by Richard Gerard
Gunshin Date, the Samurai Squirrel, Max M. Power

If you don't have an e-Reader, you will love the NOOK products. (My youngest son uses it to listen to Pandora, watch videos, read books and do research). There are many apps available for our favorite online resources (Pinterest, Dictionary.com, Ancestry.com, etc), so it functions as a nice little mobile device when we don't want to carry the laptop.

Lesson Ideas:

Gray squirrel nest (c) Kim M. Bennett 2012

We discovered the squirrel nest as one nest among three we found the same week: the other two were an oriole nest and an unidentified warbler nest. So it made sense to compare the three nests as part of our study.

We studied the two bird nests on the front porch (the squirrel nest, of course, was WAY up in a tree), discussing their similarities and differences, but you could also use a double bubble map (see "Comparing Nests: The 'Same and Different' Center" for examples of how to use a double bubble map with individual students or groups of students, or in a classroom).

We love the Exploring Creation series, and are using Land Animals of the Sixth Day this year. Pages 113-118 cover "Mouse-Like Rodents," including the squirrels. The material is very much like that of the BABC.

Nest of the Northern Oriole (c) Kim M. Bennett 2012

Our other "go-to" resource, the Handbook of Nature Study, discusses the nesting habits of red squirrels on p. 235. We have mostly gray squirrels in our area. Red squirrels like forests with more evergreen trees -- our forests are mostly oaks and maples.

Click image for more info.

When we first started homeschooling several years ago, I read that many homeschoolers used this book as part of their homeschool nature study work. I borrowed it from the local library, but soon decided that it was well worth the approximately $25 it costs to buy a used copy on the Internet. Buy it!

Other Resources:

My son and I created a set of notebooking pages to use in conjunction with our squirrel study. Since he was already working on another writing project, we mostly used the organizing tools (have I told you before that my son is NOT an avid notebooking enthusiast? He would rather fill notebooks full of action stories, so I choose my battles carefully...)


Nests, Nests, Nests!, a 25-page resource. $1.95

"Nests, Nests, Nests!" reviews the e-Book that we created to go along with this study. This set includes both primary and regular-ruled science journaling pages focusing on animal nests, as well as a variety of framed pages for thematic writing, note-taking or nature study. Organizers for studying and comparing nests of different animal orders, coloring and copywork pages, and game cards for sorting and classification tasks make this set versatile, perfect for direct instruction or independent learning tasks. You may also download a free sample of some of the pages.

The resources also include copywork, which you can see to the right. We chose scripture from Genesis, as that we are using Genesis through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt, from Simply Charlotte Mason, for our Bible Study curriculum, and are currently reading Genesis. We are used to using scriptures for copywork, since that is what is used with the Exploring Creation texts.

Discussion Ideas:

Here are some of the discussion questions we used when studying about nests (I've marked each one to show what science discipline it relates to -- physical sciences, life sciences, earth and space sciences, or engineering, technology and the application of science):

What types of materials do different types of animals use in their nests? (L)
How do these materials differ from one another? How are they the same? (P)
What makes these materials useful for nest-building? (E)
What different ways do animals build their nests? (L)
How are different kinds of animals adapted to obtain protection where they live? (L)
How might natural phenomena (such as winter storms) and human activities (such as tree cutting and clearing for building) cause changes in animal nesting behaviors? (E)

For those of you with children at multiple ages in your home, these questions follow a general progression from K to grade 4, as you move down the list. But don't get stuck on that -- my son (a fourth grader) was fascinated with seeing (up close) the actual materials used for each nest, and for different parts of the nest (for example, the warbler nest was a very tight cup of birch bark, leaf pieces and grape vine bark, but it was lined so neatly with tightly packed pine needles -- fascinating. Learning is what you make of it.

Unidentified warbler nest from M's collection. (c) Kim M. Bennett 2012

Inside lined with tightly packed white pine needles. (c) Kim M. Bennett 2012


Outside was formed with bits of bark from paper birch. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2012

We Love to Share...

This post and our ideas was shared on the Outdoor Hour Challenge and Simple Science Strategies Blog Carnivals.

Love One Another...

2012-12-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

My First Ten Book Additions to Shelfari!

2012-11-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

I discovered Shelfari on a friend's blog just moments ago...

So my weekly edition to the Top Ten Tuesday Blog Carnival is my...

First Ten Books on Shelfari!

These happen to be the books we are using for homeschool studies (with the exception of two, which don't show up on Shelfari). If you are new to homeschooling, we would highly recommend these as additions to your library.

Now that I know how to "work" Shelfari, I will be adding other books that we have read (or are reading) for homeschool. So check back often!

Look for the widget on the sidebar (you can't miss it -- it looks like a bookshelf!). Or check out the widget in this post (below). Want your own bookshelf? Check out the link at the bottom of the widget. It's so easy, and updates as you add books. You can filter what is visible by tags (in case you only want your bird books to show, for example), by whether they are on your wish list or are ones you already have read... Very versatile.

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

A Child's History of the World by

The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess

The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess

And We Have a Composter Winner!

2012-11-19T14:04:00.001-08:00

Thank you to participants in last month's Rafflecopter Giveaway of an All Season Indoor Composter, by UncommonGoods... and the winner is...

Kathy Schoenherr

Stay tuned for an after-the-holidays giveaway. And have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

~Kim @ A Child's Garden

Ten (10) Fall Nature Studies: What the Leaves Have Kept Hidden

2012-11-14T18:15:00.000-08:00

Fall sunrise in Connecticut (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

We have been enjoying exploring what the leaves of summer have been hiding from us for the past several months. Here are some of the surprises and interesting finds from the past week or so -- each one a potential in-depth study for the next month.

1. Lichens & Mosses

These can be harvested to make terrariums, even in the fall. Interesting questions that can be explored, even in the cold seasons:

Do mosses really grow more on the north sides of tree trunks?
What kinds of lichens grow in my area? Where do they grow?
What is a lichen, exactly?
How is the life cycle of a moss like that of a seed-bearing plant? How is it different?
How do mosses and lichens fit in an ecosystem? Are they producers (they are green, after all)? Are they consumers? Are they decomposers?

Barbara McCoy has a great lichen and moss study at the Handbook of Nature Study.

British soldiers lichen (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2012

2. Bark & Vines

Last fall, we took advantage of an unseasonably warm day in early March to take a "bark walk," studying the vines and bark of the trees on the nearby Blue Trail. Either one of these could be a huge study. We ended up focusing on the many faces of the ubiquitous poison ivy on our bark and vine walk.

Poison ivy, or other bark & vines, make a great fall nature study. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

3. Owls

We have been enjoying hearing the owls of Connecticut, right in our backyard, for the past couple of weeks. We are all early risers, so we are serenaded each morning, from about 4:00 a.m. until sunrise, by great horned owls and long-eared owls, and regularly encounter owls silently swooping over the roads when we drive in the evenings.

We use the Apologia Science Exploring Creation series with our youngest son, and found that All About Birds, a web page from Cornell Univerity's Laboratory of Ornithology, makes a great accompaniment to the Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day textbook. Read more about owls, and hear owl calls.

In the November edition of the Simple Science Strategies Newsletter, we feature books in the One Day series, by Jean Craighead George, nature writer and children's author. Here is another novel, with a nature theme, that was always a favorite of my students and my own children, by the same author. Click on the image, for ordering information.


Barnes & Noble, $16.00

4. Buds

When I taught horticulture students at The Ohio State University, we had three plant identification courses: woody trees and shrubs (a fall class), evergreens and winter identification of trees and shrubs (a winter class), and herbaceous plants (a spring class). In the winter, we would revisit previously learned trees and shrubs, only using their habits, twig markings and buds to identify them. Very challenging!

Winter buds can be very colorful, as well. Certain shrubs and trees that bloom very early in the spring can be cut in the late fall and winter, and brought inside to force the blooms open.

Champaign County (Illinois) Cooperative Extension Service has a nifty pocket guide on winter identification of trees and shrubs. The .pdf is full color, and also teaches about leaf and bud arrangement (did you know that there are only a few woody species with an opposite leaf arrangement?).


Colorful buds challenge our identification skills in fall and winter (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

5. Fruits and Berries

I love cutting wildflowers to bring inside after our nature hikes. In the fall and winter, I cut branches with fruits and berries, or colorful buds, instead. Last fall, I cut some multiflora rose branches with "hips" (berries), and put them in a vase on the kitchen windowsill. They rooted! No wonder it is an invasive species...

If you are a birder, it is interesting to notice which plants attract birds to your yard in winter. Some plants, like hollies and winterberries, are full of bright red fruits, but the birds only eat them very late in the winter and early in spring, when they absolutely have to. Others, like blueberries, barely get a tinge of blue before they are stripped bare by all kinds of wildlife.

If you decide to study the fruits, download a set of my "Apple a Day" notebooking pages to go along with your study.

Colorful fruits and berries brighten the fall landscape. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

6. Old Birds' Nests

We often suspect that we have nesting birds in the yard, because we see mom and dad and their little ones coming to the feeder in the summer, or we watch adults zipping back and forth with wriggly snacks in their beaks.

In the fall, when the leaves have fallen, we can often spot exactly where the nest was, as its hiding place is revealed. Sometimes, fall and winter weather, such as our recent hurricane, blow nests from their hiding spots, so we can study them up close.

One fall, my older boys collected a series of nests on our screen porch. This is a great nature activity when the outside world seems to be sleeping. A word of caution: do not bring the nests inside, as most wild birds are full of mites, which infest the nest, and are definitely NOT something that you want to wake up from their slumber in your house, as they warm up inside. Consider getting a field guide just about nests, to add to your field guide collection. (I love the Peterson guides... Click on the image for ordering information. )

Barnes & Noble $20

Did you know that...

Robins use grass and mud to make their nests, but the amount of mud varies with the weather, from nearly all grass if the weather is dry, to full of mud, when things are rainy?
Great-crested flycatchers almost always include a snakeskin in their nest cavities? (No one really knows why)
A male Northern oriole starts his nest, a bag of woven grass that hangs high in a tree, and uses the beginnings of the nest to lure a female as a mate?
Tufted titmouses line their nests with fur, even plucking hair from unsuspecting animals as they go about their daily affairs?
Hummingbirds make their tiny nests from lichens and spider webs?
Bald eagles add branches to their massive nests each year, until the sheer weight of the nest, or bad weather, topples it?
Crows, normally raucous and boisterous, fly silently to their nests, to avoid detection by predators?
Blue jays like to weave colorful bits of trash and other "finds" into their nests?
Mourning doves create a disheveled nest from loosely piled twigs and leaves?
Turkey vultures lay their eggs on a bare rock ledge?
Towhees create a nest in a leaf-lined depression on the ground?


Our oriole friends hide their nest high in a tree -- Hurricane Sandy blew last year's down for us to study. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2012.

7. Rock Walls

Living in New England means there are plenty of old rock walls around. The Puritans and other early European settlers found that planting and building anywhere in the Northeast meant dealing with the stones and boulders left by all those glaciers from the Ice Age. They placed these stones, called glacial erratics, in rock walls around their homesteads, where they remain to this day.


Rock walls teach about the settlement, and geology, of New England. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

$16.95, Barnes & Noble

Stone Wall Secrets, by Kristine and Robert Thorson, and illustrated by Gustav Moore, is a beautifully illustrated book that teaches about the geology of New England, and the culture of the ubiquitous stone walls of the area. Author Robert Thorson, a geologist at the University of Connecticut, has been studying the stone walls of New England for decades, learning about the people who built them and the bedrock which created them. It's a great "go-along" for a fall study of stone walls. For more information on this book, click on the image, at left.

8. Mounds and Pits

In September, we learned about the "One Small Square" strategy, a technique for making observations about the plant and animal life, as well as the abiotic factors, in an ecosystem. This strategy can be used to examine the differences between two unique microecosystems: mounds and pits.

Mounds and pits are formed when trees topple over then decay, over time, creating a mound where the exposed root ball once was, and a pit where it pulled out of the ground. These two areas often have different soil structure, and different plant and animal life. Autumn is a nice time to begin a study of mounds and pits, examining them when only evergreens are growing, and repeating the study on a monthly basis. Consider using the fall and winter months to map out fallen trees or mounds and pits, for future study. Practice using coordinates to map them out.


Mounds and pits form when fallen trees decompose. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

9. Cones

This month, one of our studies involves comparing and contrasting evergreens and deciduous plants. Among the evergreens you will likely encounter in your studies are the cone-bearing plants, or gymnosperms. Cones make for an interesting nature study in the fall, as each type of gymnosperm has a unique type of cone, and the cones, themselves, change over time.

We like to collect pine cones from the white pines in our neighborhood, and make peanut butter and seeds feeders for our bird feeding station -- read about this in "Winter Bird Feeding."

Collect pine cones for autumn decor or making bird feeders. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2011

10. Animal Tracks

Last week, we had our first snow storm of the season, when Storm Ari dumped 4-12 inches of snow over the state of Connecticut. Enjoying our first snow day, my youngest son and I went outside to re-load the feeding station and clean snow off things in the backyard.

We delighted in looking at the dainty little bird tracks in the snow on the hood of the gas grill, and the scuffle of prints over prints under the feeders.

Muddy ground or snow-covered surfaces provide an opportunity to study animal tracks. Check out "Follow Those Tracks!" for more information about tracks, scats and signs left behind by animals.

Study animal tracks by making plaster casts or taking photographs. (c) Kim M. Bennett, 2010

Share...

These are just some of the many studies we have been drawn to in the fall. We would love to hear about your fall finds, and the things that caught your eye as you explored outdoors this month. Please make sure that you link up your blog post on the November Simple Science Strategies Blog Carnival. Add a link to this post and the blog carnival in your blog post, too.

Have a great fall!

A Great Giveaway! The All Season Indoor Composter

2012-10-27T15:04:00.001-07:00

As we get our second batch of compost fired up, our first is processing in a new bucket out on the back patio, and awaiting its new home in the pit in the pit behind our stone wall. We, as many of you, are preparing for Hurricane Sandy, and I spent the morning taking in anything loose and cleaning up things that needed to be cleaned up, anyway.

Good news! I have another composter that I can give away to one lucky winner. It's a real gem, and you will love it. If you missed my review of it, you can read all about it in my last post:

Adventures in Composting: The All-Season Indoor Composter

The All-Seasons Indoor Composter, $48 at UncommonGoods.

Win It Here!

This contest will last two weeks. Complete the first step to unlock additional entry options.

[This contest is only open to US Contestants, per the sponsor ... but check back for future giveaways open to all!]

a Rafflecopter giveaway

October 2012 Reader Survey

2012-10-22T05:54:00.001-07:00

I thank you for being a reader of A Child's Garden, my nature study blog. Would you be so kind as to give me some feedback on your experience on this blog?

The survey is only 8 questions. You will not be asked to sign up for anything (if you do, please email me, as that means the survey link is broken). All information is anonymous. I want to make your experience the best that it can be, and appreciate the information that you have to share.

The survey will remain open for one month, then results will be tabulated.

No ads, just information for me. Thank you!

Adventures in Composting: The All-Season Indoor Composter

2012-10-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

I am so excited! I just emptied my first batch of pre-compost from the All Season Indoor Composter, by UncommonGoods...

I first learned about UncommonGoods during a Mother's Day Pinterest board competition last spring. Because some of the pins were to come from their products, I had the chance to browse their online catalog. They were certainly uncommon, and right up my alley!

So when I was offered the opportunity to try out a product in return for writing an honest review of it, I had already started a wishlist. I found so many interesting, fantastic gift ideas here!

I was fascinated with the composter, for several reasons:

I've been a "composter" for decades -- just feel good returning things to the earth...
I currently use a small roaster with a lid to store compost prior to heading to the compost pile, and tend to pile it then set the lid on top of the pile, instead of emptying it promptly. Yuck.
I need something that will fit under the sink, since my counter is too crowded for a countertop storage container.
I was in the middle of a homeschool unit on mushrooms, fungi and other "composters" and the kitchen composter fit right into our studies.

A wonderful man named Rocky sent the composter to me, with a refill of the bokashi that fuels it. And the rest was history!

Here's our composting story...

The All-Seasons Indoor Composter, $48 at UncommonGoods.

The Composter

The composter isn't really a "composter." Composting is an aerobic process: bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes that love air break down the vegetable products into an organic material that you can use to amend your garden. In the All Season Indoor Composter, the process actually is fermentation, not composting, and is anaerobic: it depends on you depriving the microbes of oxygen. (See this YouTube video for the difference -- not sure about his claims that compost piles create environmental toxins, but he explains the difference between the two process well. The Compost Guy provides a little more balanced presentation of traditional composting vs. bokashi composting).

So why is this important?

How you use the composter, and how it's constructed, actually keep air out. (Those of you who compost, and are used to turning the pile to aerate it, will understand the difference).

The composter, itself, is a neat bin (about 5 gallons in size), with a tight-fitting lid, a handle and a grate that keeps the composting products from the liquid which collects with the fermentation process. The composter comes with a bag of bokashi, a mixture of wheat bran and molasses which is "inoculated" with fermentation bacteria, which break down your compost in the bucket. Rocky sent along a second bag of bokashi, but I didn't need it. The composter fit perfectly under my kitchen sink.

The All-Season Indoor Composter fits neatly under your sink.

Bokashi - the Fuel for the Composter

A little about bokashi (from my research)...

Bokashi is a mixture of wheat bran, molasses and a special blend of microbes called "effective microorganisms," or EM, for short. If you read reviews of composters such as this one, some folks talk about the odor of the bokashi. Do you want to know what it smells like?

Cattle feed.

If you're not a farm girl or guy, it's hard to explain. It's sweet smelling, a little like taking a big sniff in a box of guinea pig pellets, but stronger. That's all. Not nasty. Very alfalfa-y.

Bokashi, the fuel that powers the All-Season Indoor Composter.

In fact, I'm thinking that, with the exception of the microbes, the mix is probably a lot like most animal feeds. My dog was very intrigued with the smell of the bokashi blend as I prepared the bucket.

You can make the mix yourself, or (conveniently) purchase bokashi refills from UncommonGoods, for $12.00.

Filling the Composter

It is extremely easy to use the composter:

Put a layer of bokashi on the bottom of the composter.

Remove all packaging from the composter.
Add a generous handful of bokashi to the bottom of the composter, taking care not to block all the holes in the bottom grate.

The grate at the bottom of the composter lets the liquid that accumulates during the fermentation process drain out of the compost, and into a separate part of the composter. From what I'm able to read, this was an improvement based on consumer suggestions.

Any kind of vegetable and meat waste can be added.

Add your organic waste to the composter.

The directions say that you can add the following items: any vegetable scraps, and small amounts of meat scraps. You are not supposed to add materials that have already begun to spoil.

What I added: stale cereal, vegetable scraps, used napkins and paper towels, coffee grounds and filters, small amounts of paper, egg shells.

Stir the mixture after each addition of waste.

Dust surface of waste with more bokashi, then stir with a spoon to coat all.

The directions say to cut everything into small pieces. I didn't -- I wanted to compare what it did with materials that I would put into my compost pile as is. I know if I have to chop my garbage, I won't use the composter.

I was not brave enough to add meat scraps to the composter this time.

Add an additional layer of bokashi before sealing the bin.

Each time you add waste, coat the layer with a generous amount of bokashi.
Stir after each waste addition.
Push down the compost to push out extra air.
Add another dusting of bokashi before sealing.

Don't be skimpy with the bokashi -- it contains the microbes that keep this process going without rot organisms, that cause bad smells.


Seal the mixture with a plastic bag or a plastic plate.

For added air-tightness, cover the compost with a plastic bag or plate, to keep air out.

I tried a nicer looking styrofoam plate, but didn't find that 1) it covered the whole surface of the compost or 2) sealed the mixture as well.

Oh, well...

Put the composter under the sink.

I have to say that I never noticed ANY smell from the composter. It seals extremely well. And I didn't use it exactly as the directions said (but DID use it the way I know I would use it):

I tossed the materials into the bin, then added bokashi and stirred it at the end of the day, but not with each addition.
I probably didn't always get the lid on tightly.

The Finished Product

After about 10 days, the composter was full (that seems typical for a family of three). The directions said to let the material process an additional 5 days before removing from the bin, so I did. Here is what we had after that:

The "tea" -- liquid that accumulates with fermentation.

The directions say that you can drain off the liquid periodically using the handy spigot at the bottom of the composter. I suppose this is more of an issue if you use a lot of juicy products (but they say to not add too much liquid to the composter, so...).

Anyway, this is all that accumulated in our bin (about 1/2 cup). I filled the rest of the little container with water, and used the mixture to water my rosemary plant.

The compost, after 15 days of processing.

After the 15 days, the mixture is not yet done. The directions tell you that you have to now bury the mixture in the ground to finish the process. I haven't done this yet (we just emptied it this evening), and wonder what I will do in the winter (you don't dig anything in the ground here in New England, in the winter).

I was impressed with the amount that the melon rinds, eggs shells and cucumber peels broke down. Good stuff.

Another view of the finished product. Nice, huh?

What I'd do next time:

Dig the hole for the finishing of the compost ahead of time, so I could just dump it in the hole when I'm finished.
Try to compost everything organic: paper from the office shredder, paper towels and facial tissues, shredded newspaper (why? because I normally compost all these things -- if I can't compost all the things I normally compost, I'll be disappointed).
Try adding meat scraps to the compost.

The empty bin.

The directions tell you not to add anything that already has begun to spoil. That was a little disappointing. There's something a little ironic about throwing the rotten cucumber that hid in the back of the crisper, in the garbage, instead of in the composter. I think I might try it in the composter next time. I'll let you know what happens.

The smell at the bottom of the bin wasn't as pleasant as the top. But it wasn't as bad with the bokashi as most rotten stuff smells.

My Recommendations

The All-Season Indoor Composter provides a spacious, odor-free way to store your compost inside until you can get it into the compost pile or pit. The bokashi makes the food waste break down much more quickly than it would in an empty container on your counter, and the pre-compost product breaks down to about 1/2 its starting volume during the finishing process in the bin. Although you have to then bury the product outside before using it as compost (it's not finished yet), the bin at least provides a convenient way to collect these scraps without mess, smell or pest problems in the house.

If you like feeling good about returning organic materials to the environment, then the All-Season Indoor Composter, from UncommonGoods, is a perfect addition to your "green" living routines.

Mine is being refilled for another "go-around," even as we "speak."

Other Things on My Wishlist at UncommonGoods

There are so many great unique finds for girls at Uncommongoods -- I am particularly fond of the Periodic Table Building Blocks, being a science girl and somewhat of a geek.

But, their picks for guys are just as intriguing: a President Block Set (my history-loving youngest son would go bonkers over that), and the older two (who are former Rubix cubers and chess masters) would appreciate the Lab Test Games.

For myself, I love the one-of-a-kind garden accessories, in particular the Apple Anchor Hummingbird Feeder and the Butterfly Puddler. I know these would be perfect in my garden -- we get a zillion hummingbirds (they come to anything red or shiny), and the orioles and bluebirds eat fruit left out for them in the yard. I also have noticed many butterflies drinking out of the "puddles" in plant saucers, so the puddler would be a pretty addition -- like a stepping stone with a dual purpose.

I'll have to wait until spring for those things... sigh. I so miss summer already.

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Signs of Autumn: Our Trip to the Orchard

2012-10-10T14:15:00.001-07:00

[Submitted to the Simple Science Strategies October blog carnival and the Outdoor Hour Challenge blog carnival.]

We're Going to the Orchard!

No autumn is complete without a trip to the local apple orchard. We live near one of the nicest orchards in Connecticut, Buell's Orchard in a little town called Eastford, here in the northeast corner of the state.

Going to the orchard is always a treat. But, like I used to tell my third grader writers, it's better to SHOW the readers than to TELL them!

(See if you can find all the signs of autumn that we observed... I'll list them at the bottom of this blog post)

Our Trip, in Photos


Rows and rows of trees, waiting to be picked.

The news folks are telling us that the apple crop will be smaller this year, because we had an incredibly mild winter (it really didn't snow, and it felt like early fall temperatures in January), which made lots of plants think that it was spring all winter, and the apples began to break about a month early. Unfortunately, this period was followed by a brief cold snap in April, which zapped many flower buds.

I can't really say that we noticed fewer apples, but, then again, when you're picking for yourself, you're only looking for a bag of them. I'm sure growers are noticing that varieties are running out earlier than they have.

When we went, they were picking Gala, Empire, Cortland and McIntosh. We (of course) had to get some of each.

The morning air had very crisp. so we brought our sweatshirts when we left for the orchard that afternoon.

Grandma enjoys the New England day.

We had an out-of-town visitor, my mom, who flew up from Florida to take care of me while I recuperated from thyroid surgery. This was my first outing after getting a little stir-crazy at home -- it couldn't have been a better one!

My mom doesn't get to pick apples like she did when they still lived in New York, so she specifically asked if we could go when she came up. Apples in the store in the South just aren't like the ones that you pick right off the tree. Heck, apples in the store in CONNECTICUT aren't either!

The temperature was warmer than we expected by afternoon, and we ditched our sweatshirts. We often are surprised by the wind that whips through the orchard, so it's better to be safe and have the sweatshirt, than cold and miserable.

Little Man was determined to pick his own bag.

Going to the orchard is one of our kids' favorite activities. Our oldest son had a soccer game, and the middle son had a social engagement, but the Little Guy is held captive by the fact that he is eight and doesn't drive!

He would have spent the whole day at the orchard. This year, he carried his own bag ("Because I'm a big boy."). An orchard trip is such a great family activity, because a fidgety kid can run up and down the rows (but not too fast, as he has to dodge apples on the ground), and there's free food wherever you go. Sunshine... outside... running... free food... play clothes... It just sounds like the formula for fun for little boys, doesn't it?

He dressed up especially for the occasion, in his favorite clothes: one of our tie-dye shirts from the summer, and his camouflage pants. Gotta love his style.

Want some apple experiments? Click here.

We had a brief review of the apple-picking process: turn the apple like a doorknob so you don't pull off the branch; check it all around for holes and dents (don't take those); don't worry about the color (because the side facing away from the sun might stay green, even though the apple's quite ripe); fill the bag to the top...

I love the Galas for lunchboxes and snacks -- they are crisp, don't dent in the lunchbox as easily, and you can sometimes find these teeny tiny ones that are so cute and perfect. Just enough sweetness (they don't make your left eye squint, like Granny Smiths do to me! I know you know what I mean...).

The leaves on the Galas were spectacular -- this is what I envision when I see the word, "green."

There's Grandma... but where's the kid going?

On to the next variety: McIntosh. I explained to my son that Macs were good for apple sauce, but not so good for pie, because they turn to mush. I wasn't going to pick any, but I couldn't help myself. Besides, the apples all get mixed together in a "surprise" bag eventually.

One thing I love about orchard apples is they are so fresh, you can leave them out of the fridge and they still stay delicious for weeks. This always happens to me, since I always pick too many for my fridge to hold, and have to leave the bag out. [We made lots of Apple Brown Betty -- check out my recipe.]

It's been too warm to leave the bag outside. Besides, here in the country, there are lots of critters who wouldn't mind having a snack on the back patio, if we left them out.

I love farm life...

On the way to the Macs, we passed the garage where they kept the tractors. This one had been freshly hosed down, so we spent some time gazing at it. My eldest was a tractor expert as a preschooler, and had an incredible collection of Matchbox-style farm equipment. He could name all the brands, by sight: John Deere (this one), Farm-all, Caterpillar, Kubota...

The Little Guy was more interested in being independent, so we sent him back for four more Macs to fill up one of the bags. We gave him a brief on how to pick the best ones, and sent him off. He likes being asked to do jobs like that.

The pumpkin fields were just starting to be picked when we were there. I'm sure that pumpkin picking is in full force now. We told the child it was too early for a pumpkin. But I think a pie is calling me now...

Lots of bloom on this Empire.

As we looked over the apples, we noticed the differences in the varieties. The Galas had "feet" like Delicious varieties do, and a deeper red color (although not nearly as deep as Red Delicious), and the skin was a little tougher than the others (but not as tough as Red Delicious, again). The Macs were cute and almost totally round, and had more green on them. The Empires had the waxy bloom that rubs off on your shirt (love shining up an apple...). And the Cortlands were the biggest of all ("This one is HUGE!" exclaimed the boy.)

So is a Cortland as good as a Granny Smith?

We headed down the road to the orchard with the Empires and Cortlands. Empires are an in-between apple -- multi-purpose. My son was looking for his favorite Granny Smiths, but those are a later variety, and they weren't ready yet. I showed him the Cortlands, which are a good pie pumpkin, and explained to him that even though apple pie was sweet, you needed a tarter apple in order for it to taste just right. So he tried one, and declared it delicious (although Grannys are still his favorite).

I think that's so funny how little kids love Granny Smiths, which I find to be so sour, and they're not red. I wonder what it is?

I know that last year, when we were picking pumpkins, I let Little Man choose his, and he selected a cute green and white one. Not an orange one. Kids are funny.

You might have seen the photo to the right, on my "Favorite Photo Friday" post last week.

Crates ready for apple shipping.

There is something so "New England" about an orchard.

I took this photo of the storage facility, and when I looked at the photos back at home, I was struck by how much this resembles shots I have taken at the lobster docks in Maine. If you just glance at the photo, it looks like a big stack of lobster pots, doesn't it?

Whenever I think about moving elsewhere, I should look at this photo...

One more pass by the Macs before we hit the country store...

With our bags full (and already paid for), we loaded our apples in the car and headed to the store, to check out the fresh vegetables (I resisted the temptation to buy a Rubbermaid tub full of Japanese china that a gentleman was selling at a tag sale along the road -- I love dishes, and that can get out of control if I am not strong! I was...)

At the store, we bought fresh corn (FRESH FRESH corn), Italian frying peppers, orange and black bell peppers, and two "personal size" melons. Mmmm... We put the peppers to good use when we got home...

One more for the road...

Last fall, Little Man asked why orchard apples taste so good. I explained where we get apples here in Connecticut: fall are local, and tasty, winter are storage from here (not as tasty), spring are shipped from South America, where it is fall, and summer are storage from South America. I explained that stored apples lose some of the sweetness, and become a little softer and mealy. When apples come right off the tree, they are at their best.

He blinked at me as if I told him too much. So I summed it up: "Apples fresh off the tree still have the sunshine in them."

Do you know that is what he has remembered that all year? I love kids...

I am glad they don't weigh kids before and after they go to the orchard. Little Guy remembered that, last year, when he ate one of each variety (four then) he had a stomach ache. So he limited himself to three this time.

What Signs of Autumn Did We See?

Changes in the Weather

Chilly mornings and warm afternoons

Changes in Nature

Pumpkins ready to pick
Apples turning red
Apples on the ground

Changes in People

Jackets and sweatshirts in the mornings, t-shirts in the afternoons
People going to pick apples and pumpkins
People making apple pies
Vegetable stands selling fresh vegetables
People visiting New England (for the changing seasons)

Did you find any others?

Updates...

We are almost ready to empty out the first batch of compost from our All Seasons Indoor Composter, and are very excited about bokashi as a compost aid! Stay tuned -- on around 10/15, the compost should be ready, and we will be blogging about our project!

All Seasons Indoor Composter, by UncommonGoods

Puffballs!

2012-09-28T13:32:00.005-07:00

I have always loved puffballs.

I don't think there's "too old" to have fun making puffs of "smoke" come out of a puffball. So when I spotted this patch of puffballs growing at the edge of the parking lot, a little childhood thrill went through my heart.


Puffballs, one of my favorite fungi (Photo credit (c) 2012 Kim Bennett)

What's a Puffball?

Puffballs are mushrooms that are shaped like a somewhat round "egg", that release their spores through a pore at the top of the "egg," when mature. They are attached to the ground by mycelium, as are the gilled mushrooms.

Puffballs can be confused with the immature forms of other mushrooms. However, when you slice the mushroom in half, a puffball will just be flesh (if immature, like this giant puffball my little guy whacked open on a nature walk last year [top]), or will be a hollow sphere full of spores (if mature, like the ones in the bottom photo, below).


Mature puffballs are hollow "shells," with only spores inside. (c) 2012, Kim M. Bennett

In comparison, if you slice open another type of mushroom, the cross-section reveals the shape of the mushroom-to-come:

In this photo, you can see the "buds" of a new crop of stinkhorns, alongside one that is emerging. You can see that the "shell" is a leathery or papery sheath that encapsulates the stem and head of the stinkhorn (see the remnants of the shell in the stinkhorn to the left). What you can't see in the photo is that the shell is also full of a nasty gel -- not easily confused with the contents of the immature puffball, above.

Gilled mushrooms, as well, reveal the upcoming mushroom in cross-section, as an "outline" of the major veins of the fruiting body. The Mushroom Expert has a great photo of a poisonous Amanita in cross-section, showing the outline of the mushroom within the egg.

Why Call Them "Puffballs?"

Puffballs do not have gills -- they don't look like "toadstools" with a stem and a cap. In contrast, their spores develop inside the capsule of the puffball. When mature, it takes only a puff of wind, the tread of a creature, or (better yet) the taps of raindrops to release the spores into the air, emerging from the pore at the top.

Of course, little boys (and their moms) can also help...


(c) 2010, Kim M. Bennett

Studying Puffballs

Puffballs make a great study for "One Small Square" activities, as there's a lot going on in a small area (check out the photos, above). Because they develop quickly, you can revisit the same spot quickly, over the course of a couple of weeks, and see things changing (good for working with little ones who need quicker change). Our crop of puffballs emerged and matured within a few weeks' time. Even after they matured, the shells of the puffballs remained for a long time, and were fascinating to my 8-yr-old, who always managed to get a few more spores out of them!

[Submitted to the Simple Science Strategies September Blog Carnival, and the Outdoor Hour Challenge September Blog Carnival]

Stay Tuned...

My All-Season Indoors Kitchen Composter (fueled with bokashi) arrived! Stay tuned for a review of this product (from UncommonGoods) in a couple of weeks (I'm very excited -- anything to stretch the gardening theme into the fall and winter...).

The All-Seasons Indoor Composter, $48 from UncommonGoods

Nadene at Practical Pages shares a hollow log indoor garden, complete with little honey mushrooms, that one of her children created for a homeschool learning project -- see it at "Freedom Homeschool Brings."

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The "One Small Square" Strategy: Mushrooms and Other "Fun Guys"

2012-09-16T07:08:00.000-07:00


Mushrooms love the woodchips in my flower bed.

[Edited and re-blogged from "A Child's Garden," September 2011]

We originally completed this study last fall, but are re-posting this for the September Simple Science Strategies newsletter, because it made good use of the "One Small Square" Strategy, the focus strategy for Week 3 of the September Newsletter, and focused on mushrooms, the topic for Week 2!

We sure have had some wild weather here in New England at the end of the Summer of 2011. We have had so much rain that the crop of mushrooms sprouting up everywhere has been very interesting and incredible.

Fall, especially the Back to School time, is always a prime time to go mushroom exploring, with the warm days, cool nights and more frequent rain. Also be on the look-out for mushroom cousins, the slime molds and actinomycetes, that you probably mistake for their more well-known family members. Here is a mushroom study that you can do for September.

Before You Go Outside:


Tiny shelf fungi on a dead tree, Fenton-Ruby Park and Preserve.

Read up on mushrooms. The Handbook of Nature Study has a very thorough discussion of many of the types of fungi that you might see on an expedition, on pages 714-727. If you read a little further, you can learn about their indoor cousins, the bread molds (pp. 727-728).
The Handbook of Nature Study website has an Autumn Outdoor Hour Challenge on Mushrooms that has excellent links to videos, notebooking pages and other resources.
Gather materials you might need for a mushroom study: clipboards and pencils, hand lenses, a long plant tag or flag to mark your mushroom spot, plastic food service gloves.
Read Outdoor Hour Challenge #9: One Small Square for a description of how to carry out the observation activity.
Prepare observation sheets for each child.
Review routines: "How to Work With a Partner."
Teach safety rules about potentially poisonous plants.

Honey mushrooms in a shady flower bed.

Observing Mushrooms and Their Cousins:

A mushroom study lends itself well to a multiple-day observation, since the fruiting body of most fungi only remains for a few days, and changes considerably with time and the weather.

Step 1: Note the location of some fungi on a nature walk.

Some places to look include wood chipped areas of a school flower garden or playground, rotting logs, tree stumps, and places where a tree once stood. At this time of year, a whole crop can pop up literally overnight, so don't be discouraged if you don't see any on a particular day.

Be on the lookout for the little "buttons" of some mushrooms that look like tan bumps before they sprout up the next day.

Step 2: Use the One Small Square technique to sketch what you observe.

Step 3: Mark the location with a stick or "flag" so you can find it the next day.

Step 4: Return to sketch changes for the next few days, until the mushroom collapses.

Mushrooms change very quickly from day to day, which is exciting for kids. Note the weather each time you observe (that day's as well as the weather from previous days). These observation forms have a place to record the weather.

Each day you observe, ask the students some questions:

How did your mushroom change? Why do you think this happened?
What was the weather like the day before? How might that have affected the mushroom?
What type of weather do mushrooms prefer? If you don't know, how can you find out?
Where are the mushrooms growing? What is the ground like there? Are there any trees around?
Do you see any insects around the mushroom? What are they doing?
Does your mushroom have a smell? (Make sure that children don't handle the mushrooms without wearing gloves, because some poisonous mushrooms resemble harmless ones.)

Classroom Follow-up:

Study the Anatomy of a Mushroom --

Enchanted Learning has a diagram of a gilled mushroom that students can label, to learn the anatomy of one type of mushroom.
The Mushroom Lady has a pile of activities that will get your kids really studying mushrooms in-depth.

Learn About Mushroom Relatives --

Here is a handy sheet of terms that you might want to study, so that you correctly distinguish between fungi, actinomycetes, slime molds and other fungus-like organisms.

Study Edible Mushrooms (and Eat Them!) --

Create a mushroom study station with stereoscopes and various edible mushrooms from your grocer's produce department: shiitake, oyster, portabella, white button, straw, crimini...

Fairy Rings, Faerie Houses and Other Literacy Connections --

Study the folklore surrounding fairy rings and faerie houses.
Build a faerie house (or two or 10...) along your school nature trail or in your backyard garden.

Faeries and other woodland creatures -- literacy connection!

Will you help me out?

September Wildflowers in Connecticut - Our Sock Walk

2012-09-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

As part of our contribution to the September Simple Science Strategies Blog Carnival, my youngest son and I put on our socks (over our shoes, of course!) and headed out to document the steps to a great sock walk. Malik videotaped, and I shot photos, and the two of us are currently trying our hand at compiling these into a video -- no telling how long this will take, but we will be sure to post it for you!

Our sock walk was along the edges of a mixed grass meadow that had been recently harvested, and across the cut meadow to a wet area that the farmer had left uncut. I think this is important, because the kinds of plants we saw on our wildflower walk are either common meadow wildflowers, or noxious agricultural weeds.

Field bindweed, Convulvulus arvensis

Common Name: Field bindweed
Scientific Name: Convulvulus arvensis
Family: Convulvulaceae (the morning-glories)

Field bindweed, or wild morning-glory, has beautiful flowers, but is quite a noxious weed in farm fields, due to the fact that it seeds so mightily, and its vines can grow to 18 feet in a season, overrunning large areas very quickly.

On the plus side, it pulls heavy metal contaminants from soils, and has been used to clean up toxic waste sites in Spain.

Tall goldenrod, Solidago altissima

Common Name: Tall goldenrod
Scientific Name: Solidago altissima

Family: Asteraceae (Compositae)

There are over 100 different species of goldenrod in the United States, so we had a little challenge identifying goldenrod species.

Goldenrod reminds me of the wildflowers that used to grow along the edge of the railroad tracks behind my house when I was little. Goldenrod makes a deep-colored, strong-
flavored honey.

Annual fleabane, Erigeron annuus

Common Name: Annual fleabane
Scientific Name: Erigeron annuus
Family: Asteraceae (Compositae)

Fleabane, like goldenrod, has many different native species in the United States. You can tell them apart by the arrangement of the flower heads, and their overall habit, or use this online site for identifying fleabanes. Like other asters, fleabane is a great plant for attracting butterflies, as the adults feed off the nectar in this late-blooming flower, and the larvae find the leaves tasty.

Like most asters, this is a late-summer to fall-blooming plant, and provides much-needed food for butterflies and bees as the summer wanes.

Common milkweed, Asclepius syriaca

Common Name: Common milkweed
Scientific Name: Asclepius syriaca
Family: Asclepiadaceae

I love milkweed (read a childhood story about milkweed here). It gets its common name from the milky sap that oozes from cut stems. Milkweed (along with other species in this family) is one of the favorite all-time foods of the monarch butterfly, with adults enjoying the nectar from the beautiful purple flower heads, and the larvae devouring the leaves.

Find sources of milkweed seed here.

Rough-stemmed goldenrod, Solidago rugosa

Common Name: Rough-stemmed goldenrod
Scientific Name: Solidago rugosa ssp. rugosa
Family: Asteraceae (Compositae)

Side by side in the same hedgerow, I think we can find five or six different goldenrod species. Here is another representative from our sock walk this month.

Goldenrod has long been used as a source of natural plant dyes, creating a warm yellow color in natural fibers.

Oriental bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus

Common Name: Oriental bittersweet
Scientific Name: Celastrus orbiculatus
Family: Celastraceae

Bittersweet is one of those plants that people either love or hate. That is because there are actually two species that you find in New England: one is a wonderful, harmless native plant, and the other is an introduced species that has become quite a noxious weed, especially in hedgerows and reclaimed fields.

It is a perennial vine, but the bright red seeds that are exposed when the yellow or orange shell cracks open are loved by birds, and I think every one germinates, especially if it lands in recently tilled soil.

It is sometimes hard to identify the two bittersweets.

White clover, Trifolium repens

Common Name: White clover
Scientific Name: Trifolium repens
Family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

White clover is another wildflower and meadow flower loved by autumn bees, and it makes a clear yellow honey much milder in taste than the deep-amber honey of the goldenrods.

Clovers and other legumes are a common addition to forage mixes, and used to be added to grass seed for its ability to fix nitrogen.

Red clover, Trifolium pratense

Common Name: Red clover
Scientific Name: Trifolium pratense
Family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

Red clover, like the other clovers, is loved by bees and a common type of autumn honey. If you go to your local farmer's market or orchard to pick apples, you'll likely find a variety of honeys for sale: goldenrod, white and/or red clover, and mixed wildflower honey are common. You might also find tupelo or other types of honey, depending on the plants available near the hives.

Some folks like to plant fields and other areas not easy to plant, with legumes, such as the clovers. They provide a source of food for bees, butterflies and other wildlife, produce color in an otherwise barren site, and improve the soil.

Meadow evening-primrose, Oenothera pilosella

Common Name: Meadow evening-primrose
Scientific Name: Oenothera pilosella
Family: Onagraceae

Like many of the other wildflowers in this article, there are many (over 120) different species of evening-primrose in North America.

The name, "evening-primrose," is hyphenated, because this plant is not a true primrose, the genus of which would be Primula. Evening-primroses get their common name from their flowering habit: the flowers close during the day, and open up in the late afternoon and early evening hours.

Some evening-primroses have a nice red-purple fall color, as this specimen from our sock walk.

Lanceleaf plantain, Plantago lanceolata

Common Name: Lanceleaf plantain
Scientific Name: Plantago lanceolata
Family: Plantaginaceae

When my eldest son was a little boy, he used to make elaborate cities in the garden, with building made out of sticks and rocks, and roadways for his Matchbox cars. He used to pluck the fruits off the seed heads of plantains, and fill a tiny trailer full of them, pretending they were ears of corn for the market. Too clever!

Plantains are good food to attract butterfly larvae to your garden.

Bishop's flower, Ammi majus

Common Name: Bishop's flower
Scientific Name: Ammi majus
Family: Apiaceae

Queen Anne's lace is a beautiful roadside wildflower. Unfortunately, people who have loved it enough to try to plant it in their yards have often regretted it. This highly invasive species will come up in farm field, flower bed, lawn or anywhere else with soil. Its tap root makes it difficult to rogue out.

Fortunately, there is an annual relative, Bishop's flower, that gives the same affect, seeds enough to establish as a wildflower, but not so much as to invade your entire yard.

Queen Anne's lace is useful for many homespun projects.

Common Name: Poison ivy

Poison ivy, Rhus radicans

Scientific Name: Rhus radicans
Family: Anacardiaceae

We recently went for a walk in the farm pasture, about two weeks after the hay had been cut. We were appalled at the very hearty crop of poison ivy that was coming up over the entire field!

Poison ivy spends most of its life as a vine, but, once mature, forms a shrub, and the birds just love its berries. Hence, the great poison ivy crop in a farm field. The leaves are brilliant red in the fall.

Poison ivy has many poisonous relatives.

Common ragweed, Ambrosia artemisifolia

Common Name: Common ragweed
Scientific Name: Ambrosia artemisifolia
Family: Asteraceae

I come from a long line of hayfever sufferers. Most of us chug through the entire year until about August 20 (here in the Northeast), when we all, suddenly, take ill. This corresponds, within days, to the start of the bloom period for this wildflower, one of the ragweeds. Common ragweed is one of the most common reasons for fall hayfever and allergies.

Big-leaf aster, Eurybia macrophylla

Common Name: Big-leaf aster
Scientific Name: Eurybia macrophylla
Family: Asteraceae (Compositae)

The wild asters are some of my favorite late-summer and early fall wildflowers. Like the garden asters, these bloom all summer, but really show their stuff at the end of the year, when other flowers have given up for the season. For this reason, I rarely rogue them out of my flower beds when they come up: rather, I selectively pull ones that stray from the group, and leave them as fall interest.

We collected a lot of different kinds of plant materials from our socks after our sock walk, including some seeds which we couldn't identify. We decided to plant one sock (from each pair), but I regret to inform you that the intense rains we had from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac flooded our seed trays. This was great for birdbaths and water dishes for our cats when they didn't feel like coming inside. But it wasn't so great for a follow-up investigation. Better results next time, maybe?

Our investigation...

Oh, well...

That's okay... muddy water always tastes better, says Rosie.

We had a great time with tie dye this summer, using a commercial dye kit. But we have really wanted to try our hand at some natural dyes made from plant materials. Perhaps that will be our next tie dye project? Stay tuned...

NEW! Botany Notebooking Pages for Fall...

2012-07-29T03:00:00.002-07:00

[Re-blogged from Books and Blooms]

Right now, in New England, we've pretty much finished picking strawberries, and are now heading into blueberry season. It will be a minute before we will be out collecting bags of apples.

But I noticed at Wal-Mart the other day, that there are shelves and shelves of notebooks and lunchboxes on display, and I just got my son's school supply list from his fourth grade teacher, so can September be too far off?

For those of you preparing curriculum for the fall, come see my new science journaling pages.

"An Apple a Day" is the first in a series of science journaling pages that follows the apple tree throughout the year. This first set focuses on the formation of the apple fruit from the flower.

The next set will focus on the fall colors of fruits and leaves.

For more information, see the Store at Simple Science Strategies.

: See Simple Science Strategies for details!

Beaches, Beaches, Everywhere!

2012-06-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Handbook of Nature Study's Outdoor Hour Challenge was beach-themed for the month of June. Here in New England, the water is a little chilly early in June, so we have waited (until now) to entertain plunging in (despite our incredibly hot air temperatures).

Big Clyde says, "Life's a beach..."

As we are planning for our first beach trip next week, we have been going over the things we have been studying in our other homeschool studies, and realized that beaches were in all of them!

The Swiss Family Robinson, our summer read-aloud, is taking us into exploration of life on a tropical island. I've been looking for my Hawaii photos to help us out... We are creating a theme basket which includes books on the plant and animal life on a tropical beach.
An independent project on WWII has brought us to Hawaii (yet again!), for a study of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941...
Learning about the geography of Japan has been teaching us about islands as a land form, and beaches as part of the geology cycle.

In preparation for writing about our findings, I have begun assembling a Pinterest board with all kinds of links to nature studies and notebooking resources for beach work. Did you know that, if you Google "beaches notebooking," you get over 21,500 image hits? I am having great fun checking out what other beach lovers have shared. Given the number of projects we have underway that are connected to beaches, I'm sure that we will be visiting this board, and adding to it, quite often!

Here is a nature study from last summer based on a beach trip to Ocean Beach, New London, Connecticut, and a jarful of shark's teeth mailed to us from Grandma in Florida: Beachcombing, Part I: Shark Teeth. Stay tuned for Beachcombing, Part II after our beach visit next week! (We'll be sure to take our beach pages from the OHC with us...).

Other things on our list of homeschool activities for the week (and links we're using):

Friday: Watermelon Sorbet - we're in the middle of this one right now, as a garden/nature study connection to summer, beaches, tropical weather and all things June...
Saturday: Tie-dying - we bought a kit at Wal-Mart, and I'm gathering white t-shirts today for a weekend of colorful fun
Sunday: Continued work on our Child Training Bible
Monday: Pearl Harbor videos - for our history study of Japan and WWII
Tuesday: A trip to the library for books about Japan, WWII and Hawaii
Wednesday: Cherry blossom art - this is so cool (I'll buy frames and paints this weekend). I'm not sure how we'll exhibit the art, but here are ideas: Rainbow Family Room and Jewel Tones in the Living Room
Thursday: Not sure yet, but I'll look over my Making Math Meaningful board for ideas...

One of those days (or maybe two!) will definitely be a beach day, so we'll look over Life's a Beach for ideas after the trip, and save whatever we don't do for another day.

Don't you just love summer homeschool?

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[This blog post is featured on the June 2012 Edition of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. Come check out other posts on bees, beaches, and other summer topics -- great ideas for summer nature study and homeschool work!]

Waikiki Beach, from www.aloha.com

What Color Attracts More Birds? - A Lesson on Fractions

2012-06-11T06:58:00.001-07:00

[Originally completed last winter, but submitted for the Simple Science Strategies September Blog Carnival 2012, because it shows how we connected science and grade-level work on fractions].

As part of our science work in Exploring Creation Through Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, my son and I recently completed a little feeding experiment (see Lesson 4).

Materials Used:

two identical pie pans
construction paper (one sheet of green, one sheet of red)
scissors
mixed bird seed (or seed of your choice)
1-cup measuring cup

Procedure:

Trace the bottom of the pie pan onto each sheet of construction paper; cut out the two construction paper circles.
Place one circle inside the bottom of each pie pan.
Measure one cup of mixed bird seed into each pie pan, making sure to push the seeds to one side to expose the color at the bottom of the pie pan.
Place the pie pans on the ground in a place where birds frequently come to visit and feed.
After 2 days, bring the pie pans inside. Measure the seed in each pan using a measuring cup.

Two identical pie plates, prepared for our color
preference study.

We used a premium mixed seed, but any seed will do.

We realized that the seed completely
covered the colored paper at the
bottom of the pan, so we pushed the seeds to
one side, to expose the color.

Our experiment is in place!

Hypothesis:

Null Hypothesis: Color will have no effect on which seed tray the birds eat from more.
Alternative Hypothesis: "I think that red will attract more birds than green." - Malik, age 8

Results:

When we measured the seed in each container, there was 2/3 cup in the red pan, and 3/4 cup in the green pan.
I had Malik use multiple methods to compare the two fractions, using the Rule of Four:

--------------------------------------------

Verbal Representation ("Words"):

Using words, Malik explains how he compares the two fractions. In his response, I can see that he correctly explains that the smaller the denominator, the greater the fractional piece, but he neglects to take into account the numerator is not one when responding. This shows me he understands what the denominator means, a big step for many kids.

Geometric Representation ("Pictures"):

I created a "Part:Whole" diagram, and asked Malik to show the fractional parts ("Divide the row into thirds/fourths..."), then shade in the number of fractional parts indicated by the numerator (the part he neglected in step 1, Verbal).

He correctly identifies that 3/4 is, in fact, larger than 2/3, but I can see that he has trouble eyeballing fractions when he divides the whole into parts.

Analytic Representation ("Patterns"):

Some math programs have students create a data table based on a "function machine," where one number goes in and another comes out. Sometimes the rule is stated; other times the child needs to discern the rule. This type of work forms the basis of algebraic thinking as the student gets older.

Here, I completed the data table for my son, and asked him to use it to answer the question, "Which is bigger, 2/3 or 3/4?" He was able to find the two fractions on the data table and compare them by comparing the equivalent fractions, 8/12 and 9/12.

Numeric ("Numbers and Equations"):

Lastly, I asked my son to compare the two fractions, in numeric form, using the conventions of a simple inequality.

This was easy for him.

Heard from the other room as he was completing this task, "My hypothesis was correct!" (Don't you just love when little kids use big words correctly?) ;)

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Reflection:

Malik showed a good understanding of the meaning of fractions in numeric form, and showed the ability to compare two fractions using multiple methods, especially using numbers and patterns, although he makes errors when drawing visual representations.

We will continue to work on the visual representation of fractions and part-whole relationships, and estimating fractions by sight, using volume and linear measures.

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Our Other Feeding Stations:

A tube feeder with Niger thistle, to attract finches. We regularly get goldfinches and house finches to this feeder, as well as chickadees, titmouses and the occasional house sparrow, as well as nuthatches (white-breasted and red-breasted, brown creepers and the occasional downy woodpecker who manages to cling to the feeder).

The squirrels have knocked the perches off the sides, using the feeder as a way to jump to the sunflower seed feeder, but that doesn't seem to bother the little birds, who cling to the sides just fine.

Our bin feeder currently contains a black oil seed mix. We usually put a sunflower seed mix of some sort in this feeder. This feeder has been through the mill. It got knocked down by hurricane Irene, by errant football tosses, and my husband's head as he cut the grass. The leather strap that suspended it from the pole broke due to years of exposure, and has been replaced by countless things. I think we've hung it by an old shoestring now, using the suet baskets to tie it. The squirrels have a harder time opening the feeder now that I've tied the lid to the sides (it's hard to open the lid when you're sitting on it).

We always put out suet. We had many bluebirds this winter, with our mild weather here in Connecticut. We also find the set attracts woodpeckers (downy, hairy, red-bellied), nuthatches (white- and red-breasted), chickadees, catbirds and titmouses. The orioles have even passed through the yard. We sometimes make our own suet mixes. If you have an old-fashioned grinder, it's easy to make a suet mix. We have a recipe in another post. Not shown here is our hummingbird feeder, which I hung up after these photos were taken.

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For more ideas for making math lessons fun for homeschool and classroom, see my Pinterest board, "Making Math Meaningful."

Third Grade 2011-12

2012-05-16T02:45:00.002-07:00

[Re-posted]

Malik finds a comfy seat for independent reading!

[NOTE: We always keep things free form in our plans. This year, our little guy spent a few months in public school, when we moved to a new town while our home is being renovated. So we didn't get to everything on this list, but we did a lot of it, and will finish the zoology over the summer. We all decided it's back to homeschool next year -- yay!]

We are heading into our second full year of homeschooling are youngest son, Malik, who is 7. Last year was a year of unlearning bad habits (his and ours) and re-learning what education was supposed to be like...

You shall teach [My words] to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut 11:19)

Scheduling:

I'm refining our schedule so that we all have fun being with one another, and letting go of some things (like busywork). We ARE using some good, Christian books and getting more organized (I HAVE to if I am to work full time and homeschool, too). We'll see... At any rate, I have found Donna Young's Homeschool Resources and Printables to be a lifesaver for all things organizational (AND she is a great help if you have questions, too!). I just love the homeschooling community...

We took the week of Independence Day off as a vacation, and I took the time to work on curriculum scheduling that week. Then we added one content area each week, in this order:

Math (Malik's least favorite subject) (because we needed the extra practice)
Independent Reading/Reading Log (to get him in the habit of recording his learning)
Medieval History/Notebooking (again, to instill habits of the mind and body; this is his favorite subject)
Read-Aloud/Notebooking (he chose the Burgess Bird Book for Children to start with)
Science (full curriculum)
World History (full curriculum)
Word Study
Writing Skills
Bible Study
Spanish

We are introducing skill work today, and have yet to start Bible Study or Spanish (we took off one week in July because it was nearly 100 degrees here every day, and neither teacher nor student could think -- this is one benefit of homeschool!).
_________________________________________________________

Curriculum Details, by subject:

Here is our curriculum for Grade 3 (2 1/2 - 3 hrs per day, 5 days a week):

Math (daily)

Math Mammoth Grade 3 Complete Curriculum (include 7 software programs with interactive games, and two downloadable textbooks). Math Mammoth is a mastery program (not spiraling). We tried a different resource (Everyday Math, Grade 3) last year, and we had too many holes (from public school) for him to feel successful at it.

I print out a few lessons at a time, and we keep them in a spiral notebook, along with extra practice pages from whatever workbooks we had laying around at the end of last year. There are a lot of problems for each lesson. We try to do about 2 pages a day, but I let my son pick 1-2 problems out of each section, and, if he does ok with them, we don't do any more. If he has trouble, I write comments right on the page, and we do a problem or two from that section the next day.

I bought two resources that were very helpful for my son:

Learning Resources Base 10 Blocks, Starter Kit
Learning Resources "Big Time" 12-hour Student Clock

Science (2 times per week)

Last year, I created units, based on my son's interests. This year, I discovered Apologia's Exploring Creation Through Zoology I: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. I purchased both the text book and the notebooking journal. We follow the handy schedule that is at the front of the notebooking journal. We take two weeks for each lesson, doing most of the reading and narration on the first day of the week, and the activities, projects and experiments on the second day. There are a lot of options, and links to an online partner website. We try to do all the pieces, including the optional activities. My son likes the experiments best (and so does his mom!).

We especially like that the book supports our Bible studies. The Zoology I course studies all the flying creatures: birds, bats, insects and flying reptiles (pteranodons, etc.), all of which were created on the fifth day.

Nature Study (daily)

We experimented last year, but I think we have hit a good rhythm with our nature study this year, and have struck a balance between pure nature study and nature study with more science content (I can't help it -- I'm a scientist by training). We use a number of resources, but we follow a system that looks something like this:

Because we are studying flying creatures, we are reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children online (we use The Baldwin Project's version, but there are others). [NOTE: we read a lot of e-texts, and I am seriously considering purchasing a Nook Color just for downloading e-texts and reading bookmarked web texts -- I'll keep you posted. Each story introduces another common yard bird, and the birds are introduced according to their families.

After reading about a new bird, I consult the Handbook of Nature Study website, to see if Barbara McCoy has any nature studies already put together for that bird. [She almost always does...] We do all the activities and study all the resources in the nature study, and also read the corresponding section from the Handbook of Nature Study, by Anna Comstock (this is also available as an e-text, but I purchased a copy on Amazon).

We carefully study the bird from the Burgess chapter, but we also do a little research on any bird from that family that we are likely to see where we live, by consulting our field guide and completing a notebooking page.

When we finish a nature study, we write up our study as a blog entry, and post a link on the Outdoor Hour Blog Carnival.

Nature study is one of our favorite activities, so we spend a lot of time on it!

History of the Middle Ages (daily)

We started using Ambleside Online Year 2 in about March of last year. My son fell in love with the history stories ("I only want to do science twice a week, but can we do history every day?"). So, because we started Year 2 so late, we are just repeating it this year. Year 2 focuses on the years 1000 AD through the Middle Ages.

Right now, we read the stories as read-alouds, while my son completes some kind of notebooking activity (I usually print out a bunch of different notebooking pages on the historical figure or event, and let him decide what he feels like doing that day). We are also creating a model of a motte-and-bailey castle -- we'll post on that one later.

World History (daily)

Because the Ambleside readings are very Eurocentric, and because we didn't do Year 1, I wanted to give my son a nice overview of the ancient times, as well, so we purchased A Child's History of the World (which is one of the texts for Ambleside Year 2, also). The complete course includes the text book, a teacher's manual, and a workbook, which contains note-taking pages and directions for enrichment activities. We do all the enrichment activities.

We supplement our Middle Ages and World History studies with a weekly current events article from one of the online news magazines for kids. I try to find an article that is set in a geographical location that we are reading about in either World History or Medieval History.

We keep our history notebook in the format of a Book of Centuries, with all our notes from both studies in one place.

English Language Arts (daily)

I am learning to take a "hands-off" approach with a lot of the direction for language arts this year. Malik is an independent reader and writer, and, last year, I discovered that I got in the way when I tried to direct this subject too much. Here are the things that I DO make sure that I address in language arts, using the "Daily Five" as a structure.

Read to Self: Our little guy is a voracious reader, and can down a novel a day, when he's on a roll. At first, we were unsure whether or not he was really "reading" or if he was just letting the words get into his eyeballs! So we quizzed him heavily after one novel, irritated him, and he knew every detail and even got subplots! So we don't interfere. My chief job is book gatherer at our local library. Currently, he is enjoying Secrets of Droon, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and a re-read of all the Captain Underpants books that he can find -- all boy stuff! We do require him to keep a reading log daily -- eventually these books will show up on the blog as a literature list -- stay tuned! We haven't settled on a response method yet, but he likes book projects, so I'm entertaining the idea of a monthly project. I'll pull out Better Than Book Reports and see what we might do..
Read to Someone: Malik has discovered the joys of "role play" this summer (we used to call it "playing pretend" when we were little). One of the fun things about the graphic novel format of some of his favorite book series is that we can use "reader's theater" to share the novel, which lines right up with his current dramatic interests. This makes sharing a book so much fun, especially when we adopt the characters' mannerisms and different voices.
Listen to Reading: I read many of his science and social studies reading aloud. I like this, because it gives me an opportunity to stop and clarify, or give a little background information -- the content is so rich! We always follow up read-aloud with some kind of notebooking activities. Science and World History both have notebooking journals or workbooks as part of the curriculum. We add our own pages for other content areas. We pull notebooking pages from all kinds of places, but usually consult the Notebooking Treasury and Enchanted Learning, first.

Work With Words: Malik is a natural speller. I had intended last year to use his spelling errors to choose his spelling focus, but he didn't really enough errors for me to decide where to begin. So I administered the Developmental Spelling Inventory (DSI) from Words Their Way, to determine his literacy level ("Harder Suffixes and Prefixes, and Roots"). He expressed an interest in Latin, after learning about Latin binomials in his Zoology I studies, so I picked up a copy of Vocabulary Bridges: English to Latin and Greek (Trivium Pursuit), to help us pick word chunks for our focus. We also add content vocabulary (castle, moat, motte, bailey for this week, for example). We do a lot of word sorts and vocabulary linking activities from a lot of different sources.
Work on Writing: This is another area where I am learning that "less is more," with respect to my involvement. Malik loves to write, and is a good writer. Last year, I found that, the more I directed his writing (read, "interfered with"), the less he produced, and the poorer the quality. So I stopped. He currently has a whole spiral notebook full of detailed illustrations of a bunch of characters that he calls the "Stick Rangers," stick figure paramilitary kind of guys, with full regalia, and detailed "specs," including their favorite weapons, their specialties, and bios on each one. He also has the beginnings of some graphic novels that were inspired by his Medieval History studies ("The Adventures of Alexander the Archer" is one). These are delightful, and I don't get in the way. I DO look at his notebooking entries on about a weekly basis, to identify particular skills for a focus (use of apostrophes, commas in a series, speech bubbles, there/their/they're, are some of our recent foci). I pull practice activities from Daily Language Review, Grade 3, but I pull items specific to the focus -- I don't work through the book from front to back.

World Languages (daily)

We live in a very culturally diverse city, and our son is exposed to many languages during his everyday life, so he has developed a natural "ear" for languages and language patterns. We are starting with Spanish (because it is a language that I speak and have materials for), but we will stretch to other ones. My goal here is to raise him as a bilingual child, but to also expose him to other languages as he has interest. I discovered Mis Cositas, a site that has a wealth of resources and downloadable mini-courses for a number of languages. We will begin with El Bosque Tropical, which a a thematic unit on the tropical rainforest for beginning Spanish studies.

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Other Helpful Links:

There are so many! But here is a list of the places that make our life easier on a day-to-day basis (besides the ones already mentioned; also, check my individual posts for specific ones that come up during our lessons):

Curriculum Choice -- links to other homeschoolers (like us!) and homeschooling resources
Curr Click -- free and low-cost curriculum materials, created by other homeschoolers
Scholastic -- I make frequent use of the Book Wizard for leveling my library and tracking my son's reading level; we also use the Scholastic News curriculum materials for our current events
Amazon -- You can find anything here...
Dictionary.com -- Because we just love words in our house...

You, Too, Can Teach Literacy!

2012-05-13T15:51:00.001-07:00

Two brothers and a game of Chinese checkers.

I was talking to a good friend the other day. She has a delightful little daughter, who is a kindergartner. The little girl, like my youngest son, was probably what Mary Sheedy Kurchinka had in mind when she wrote her book, Raising Your Spirited Child. The two of us were chatting about how school was going, and I said that (after a brief few months back in public school) my son was looking forward to homeschooling again in the fall.

My friend thought for a moment, then said, "Well, if I were smarter, I'd probably homeschool my daughter." I felt sad. We are all smart enough to teach our own children!

Lots of parents who are considering homeschool (and even teachers who teach in public schools!) ask me how we do it -- how do we decide what to teach, how do we make sure that we "cover" everything, etc., etc. I don't have answers to all of those questions, but I can tell you that my son can read and spell everything, knows stuff in science that most adults don't know, and just loves the story of Richard the Fearless of Normandy. I think he's an ok kind of kid!

But I know that it was helpful to me (and still is!) to hear other homeschoolers talk about homeschool. So I thought about the first thing that most parents think of when thinking about homeschool curriculum: teaching literacy.

Literacy includes many different parts: reading and writing, spelling, vocabulary, listening and speaking, grammar and language. Teachers use state standards to teach all of these parts. But, in homeschool, this can seem overwhelming -- so there is an easy way to make sure that we cover all these things, and we can do it in a way that, well, seems like home.

The Daily Five is a skinny little, wonderful book written by teachers with school teachers in mind, but they describe literacy in a very parent and child-friendly way. In their book, the authors, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser (lovingly referred to as "the Two Sisters") break literacy up into five different activities:

Reading to Self

Reading to Someone

Listening to Reading

Working with Words

Working on Writing

Doesn't this all sound like what you do in homeschool, already? I thought so...

Here I'll address each one, and give you ideas for how you can make sure you are providing a rich experience for your child at home, without turning your home into school, or spending a lot of money.

Reading to Self

Research shows that the more kids read, the better they read. And, the more they read, the more words they know. And the more words they know, the smarter they become. So reading is a good thing!

When I was a classroom teacher, parents would ask me what they should get for their kids to read. I said, "Anything they want to read!" There is merit in anything: encyclopedias, wordless picture books, the back of the cereal box, the telephone book, the same dog-eared copy of Captain Underpants that you've read 72 times already... Whatever your child wants to read is a good read.

I "require" 30 minutes of reading as independent work, each day, but that is rarely a problem. I also have "bribed" my kids (all of them) into going to bed on time by allowing them to stay up a half-hour past their bedtime if they are in their beds reading (this has worked in our home for 24 years, and most of my students' parents report it to be a success, too!).

The simplest way to keep track of your child's independent reading is through a reading log. There are so many forms of this. DonnaYoung.org has a number of homeschool book lists that you can print out and keep in your plan book, or you can create your own and print it out. Teach your little one how to write the title and author, and how many pages/minutes he read. Sometimes I would add something else to the log, depending on what we were working on: genre, a simple rating scale, who would enjoy this book (audience), etc. [We also keep an inexpensive spiral notebook as a response journal, where I would write questions (mostly "think about" kind of questions, like, "Why do you think Opal's dad doesn't want to talk about her mom? What are your clues?"). I made sure that I wrote back. More on this in the "Work on Writing" section.]. Use Scholastic's "Book Wizard" to find great books.

My kids could spend the whole day in the library. Nowadays, there are so many activities in the local library: computers, story hours, visiting speakers, arts and crafts times, and reading contests. Many libraries in the city (like where we live) serve lunch during the week in the summer, and snacks after school. If you don't have air conditioning, it's not a bad place to hang out on a hot day. If you tell your librarian you homeschool, she will often be on the lookout for books that you want to use in your studies, too.

Now that my son is older, some of his assignments have independent reading parts. When kids are very little, they might just "look at" books, but this is reading, too. The idea is for them to independently engage in reading things they like to read, to develop of love of reading. If you want to check the reading level of the books your child is choosing to read on his own, check out Scholastic's Book Wizard tool, which is easy to use (see the "Teaching Tip," above, and the screen shot image, for an example of what you get from the tool).

Reading to Someone

Reading to someone helps children develop oral reading fluency. What this means is that they read smoothly, at a natural pace, with proper expression, and that they read accurately. Children that can read fluently out loud tend to be the children that also understand what they are reading, better.

When children struggle over words, they read texts too slowly to connect the words together, which is what makes meaning. This also tells us that they are having such a difficult time identifying words that they are missing what the story is all about. On the other hand, kids who read too fast also miss the story line.

There are lots of easy ways to make time for your child to read out loud.

Switch roles. I read to you, or you read to me (take turns - give the child a choice).

"Read to Me" Fridays. Let the child choose the book she wants to read.

Read plays together. Take roles and read the play like a "Reader's Theater."

Share the dialog. Let one person be the narrator, and the other read the dialog, in novels.

My kids used to love the Magic Schoolbus books, and they would never let me skip all the little speech and thought bubbles on each page. Not easy to read! But how much easier (and more fun it became) when we would each choose a character, and turn the book into a Reader's Theater, each reading that character's thoughts and dialog.

I don't use a reading curriculum. I listen to my son read, and keep track of what his errors are, then find lessons online to address those specific things (see "Teaching Tip #2"). For example, if I search online for lessons on pausing at periods, I find many ideas for helping students to pay attention to punctuation, from color-coding different types of punctuation, to practicing reading sight-word phrases instead of individual words, to reading fun books like Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Why, Commas DO Make a Difference!

Listening to Reading

This is probably the biggest advantages that homeschoolers have over public schoolers when it comes to reading instruction: the fact that so much of our "instruction" during the day is read-aloud. Children learn how to be fluent, problem-solving, understanding readers when a fluent, problem-solving, understanding reader models for them! (Pssst.... that's YOU!).

The purpose of listening to reading is to learn what good readers sound like, what they do when they read, and how they think. Read-aloud is the best way for you to do this with your children. You don't have to even be a stellar reader to be a great reading teacher. I have a teacher-friend who excels at reading instruction, because she, herself, was a struggling reader until about grade 4. She knows where children get stuck, because she did, herself.

To choose great read-alouds, check out the Bookfinder at Simply Charlotte Mason, where you can search by grade-level, curriculum year or topic.

Here are other easy ways that you can vary this part of literacy:

Books on tape/CD. One of my children wore out his audiotape of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as he read along. Nothing like Ray Charles teaching you how to read!

Story time at the library. Many public libraries have story hour during the week, for preschoolers. Your younger elementary homeschooler might enjoy these opportunities. Often, towns will bring in guest readers or visiting authors to read, or even perform with puppets or drama -- a nice change-up from reading at home.

Stories on TV. There is a place for the judicious use of "screen time" in homeschool. My eldest used to enjoy Reading Rainbow, which boasted an assortment of guest celebrity readers, as well as book reviews by other kids. You can find free episodes to watch online, too (see the link, for one site).

Whisper Phones. Some of my teacher friends have been using these tubular contraptions, and one even had her husband make them out of PVC pipe and elbows. I am including a photo of a first grade student using one (click on the link to go to the teacher's website), and a link to plans for making your own, in case you'd like to try that idea out. The idea behind it is that the student who is working on reading more fluently hears himself reading in a whisper, and pays attention to his own reading better than by reading aloud. Kids love them, and they do seem to work.

Working with Words

We love word play in our house. My husband can switch syllables and starting letters around in words so quickly that sometimes we have to pause and figure out what he just said. Jokes abound, and we try to outdo one another with what we call "refrigerator words" -- the kind that you write down on a paper and hang on the refrigerator to remember later.

Working with words in homeschool is easy as can be. Here are some ideas that are fun for families, and reinforce how words work and are put together:

Word games. Our family favorites include Scrabble, Boggle, and Upwords.

Crossword Puzzles. Our science workbook (Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day) includes a crossword puzze as a review of each lesson.

Books about working with words. Some ideas: Frindle, The Word Eater, Donavan's Word Jar.

Books that also have fun with words. Anything by Dr. Seuss, Alice in Wonderland, and Shel Silverstein poems.

My sister-in-law taught my nieces how to read at a very young (pre-K) age, by labeling objects around the house. Everywhere the girls went, the objects were labeled: "table", "refrigerator", "chair", "stove"... If you are wanting to work on sight words, this is a more natural way to teach them than sheer memorization. Sight-word bingo is another fun way to learn sight words. You can find many sites for printing out bingo boards.

If you want to work on particular phonics lessons, make them game-like. Write the chunk you are studying ("pl-" for example) on an index card, then use Scrabble tiles to build the rest of the word. Sort the words you make into sense and nonsense words.

When my eldest was a toddler, I used one of those photo albums with the clingy pages, and labeled each page with a letter of the alphabet, upper- and lowercase. We would cut out pictures from magazines of things that started with that letter, and add them to the album. We would start each day by reviewing our album, then add a few more things. He loved this alphabet book for years. You could make different pages for older students.

Working on Writing

We have all but eliminated any difficulties regarding writing for homeschool, through two means: notebooking and a free-writing journal.

We use notebooking extensively in social studies and science. Our notebooks are full of maps, diagrams. poems, penmanship practice, word lists, questions and answers, stories, and graphic organizers. But mostly they are full of writing, of all kinds!

My youngest son is a very smart boy. In public school, children are pushed to begin to write at an early age. I don't mean the "conveying my thoughts and feelings through words and pictures" kind of writing, but the "sit down and write a story" kind of writing. I can tell you, as a homeschool mom and a public school teacher, my very bright boy did not like to do written work through second grade and most of third. Now, every now and then he would write something that would blow our minds -- he's a very talented writer, and likes to write, but not when he is ASKED to do it.

With notebooking, I print out several notebooking pages that fit a lesson, some with space for a big picture, some with several smaller pictures and lines, some with maps, some with timelines, etc. I let him choose which he wants to use that day. He knows that 1) there will be the expectation of excellent work no matter which he chooses and 2) eventually he will end up using the other notebooking pages. His notebooks have grown in quality, because he has been allowed choices of how to respond.

The other writing work he does is in his "free writing" notebook. Currently, he has three or four notebooks full of drawings of superheroes he has invented, complete with their bios and specs. His drawings are detailed and labeled, and his bios are excellent summaries. He will spend days adding to his notebooks. I can pretty much teach anything I want to teach in writing, using one of his notebooks.

The point is this: writing is more than stories and reports. It is lists, and directions, and calendar entries, and text messages. It is a silly poem or a note to a friend. Make yourself feel better by writing down everything you write during the course of a day. Here's my list for today:

This blog

The check for my bills

My "to-do" list

Two text messages to my elder two sons

A Mother's Day greeting to my mom, sister and sister-in-law on Facebook

A business email to a client

I didn't write a story or a report. And the only piece I did any editing and revising with was this blog. I definitely used my research skills for the blog and the business email. And I used technology for all but the bill paying. I'm not saying to never do a report or write stories -- most kids love to do these. It's just that we shouldn't worry about how many stories our little ones have written, since there are so many other reasons for writing that will just come up during the course of a normal day.

To find lots of notebooking pages for my homeschool needs, I have a subscription to The Notebooking Treasury. You can find notebooking pages for just about any topic you want to study. Join the Notebooking Pages Treasury now during their NotebookingPages.com 6th Birthday Sale-a-Bration Event and receive an extended membership, chance to win some great prizes, & access to their new notebooking web-app for creating, customizing, & completing your own notebooking pages (coming in June 2012)! The perks are nice. Another trick I learned was to Google "notebooking," then switch the view to "Images." You'll see all kinds of notebooks created by homeschoolers, and their blogs usually tell you about other sources of notebooking pages. We homeschoolers love to share!

My homeschool friend, Barbara, blogs about nature study, art and many other topics at The Handbook of Nature Study. Read her article about notebooking with teenagers here.

I hope you have been encouraged in your homeschool efforts, and have found a literacy activity that is a just-right activity for you and your child.

Have a marvelous spring!

Our Favorite Read-Alouds!

2012-04-20T05:13:00.000-07:00

What's your favorite read-aloud of all time?

Post a photo with an information link (in case someone wants to find that book) and a short description, and include the hashtag #favoritereads. If you have read and reviewed the book on your blog, link your photo to your blog so folks can find more information.

Perhaps you'd like to include one that all of your kids enjoyed, year after year. Maybe it's a classroom read that was always a big hit. Even consider the ones that you remember from childhood.

If you have a Pinterest board, let me know via the email link, and I will post your book photo on our board, "Our Favorite Read-alouds of All Time."

Thanks for contributing!

Scheduling Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

2012-04-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

Scheduling is one of the homeschooling activities that takes the longest for me -- probably because I don't want to NOT study anything! I also discovered that, if I'm not careful, lesson planning for ONE student can take as much time as lesson planning for a whole class of students. So I appreciate it when someone helps me out by suggesting a schedule.

If you purchase the notebooking journal with your Apologia Science text (which I recommend), you will notice that there is a multi-page schedule that shows you how to complete each lesson in four days over a 2-wk period. The first day of the week is more of the reading and the second has more activities. The first year we tried scheduling this way. I found that, if your child loves workbook activities, he won't mind the days when there are a lot of notebooking activities. My son was not one of these kids, however, and we often had to struggle to get through the journaling. Additionally, I wanted to take the Try This! activities, as well as the Nature Points and Experiments, and expand them, and also get in more nature study, outdoor activities and full experiments (as my son is quite active, I wanted outside to be his classroom). We did a lot of hiking, gardening and outdoor exploration during the summer, so we didn't mind stretching the course over more of the year (I know some folks do two Apologia courses per year -- I'd rather do smaller bits over a longer period of time, and add the nature study). So here's the schedule we have used this year (and we are all happier with it). [NOTE: The important thing to remember is the needs and interests of your child. If you want to get through the science "content" more quickly, so you can move on to music and art, because that is what your child wants to do with the bulk of her time, then do that. If you want to do two courses per year, because you want to make sure you get to all of them, then do that. Remember the reason you homeschool -- your child! ]

Our Zoology Schedule:

Click to jump to the month:

September October November December January February March April May June July August

If you count the number of individual activities listed in the schedule in the notebooking journal, there are 187 activities. Our calendar is 210 days long (180 days of school, 15 days of vacation during the year, and 15 days for exams/ practicum). If we let each activity have its own day, then we end up needing more school calendar days, but we don't mind. That gives us leeway in case we do something different some days, or skip school days, or just want more time with Zoology. So we're fine with that.

Whenever we see "Project Page for extra projects" in the schedule, we add time for nature study projects (either about birds, or not). T = Textbook, and NJ = Notebooking Journal.

We start this course on October 1 (that gives us September for the beach, when it's not crowded but still lovely, and lets us buy school supplies on markdown. It also helps you study insects when they are most abundant -- the summer time). If you want to skip the exam weeks and just continue, that works, too. Adjust the schedule to suit your calendar.

We follow the Outdoor Hour Challenges from the Handbook of Nature Study. Activities marked (OHC) could be used for OHC entries or activities, as well. I have linked items where there is already a challenge or post, if you'd like to expand the Zoology activity to incorporate more nature study. Subscribe to Barb's newsletter to get new challenges directly in your email inbox, or check out her Autumn Challenges list.

September

We start school in October. A later start works well for this course, since insects are studied in the spring/summer as a result. If you want to start in September, adjust the weeks accordingly, and consider switching birds and insects. To do this, start with Lesson 1 (taxonomy) then go to Lesson 9 (insects). Continue with bats and pterosaurs, as listed, then finish the year with birds in the spring.

We did not complete the course this way (we actually started it in the summer), but, if I could do it again, I think this way makes good sense if you are coordinating it with nature study.

Time during September could be used for free notebooking activities. Even when my kids were in public schools, they always enjoyed having a writing notebook that they used all summer. My eldest son kept funny vacation diaries (he's 24, and we recently found one of them in a box of things from the house). My middle guy was not as big a writer, instead preferring to build things then take photos of them for posterity. The youngest has notebooks full of imaginary characters for an adventure series that he's writing, complete with detailed drawings, tables showing their "specs" and bios.

Some kids' imaginations are sparked when they are offered different materials to use for writing. The Notebooking Treasury has notebooking pages for many topics, as well as a wide assortment of blank pages from which your child could choose. I usually print out 5-7 different blank pages for a week, then let my son choose each day -- sometimes it's a large illustration page with a caption, other days three mini drawings and shorter entries.

October

Day 1 - Begin Lesson 1: "What is Zoology?" - Read T pp. 1-5
Day 2 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Zoology," NJ p. 12
Day 3 - Try This! (mnemonics) T p. 5
Day 4 - Read T pp. 6-7; add to "Fascinating Facts About Zoology"
Day 5 - Try This! (air pressure in a straw) T p. 7
Day 6 - Read T pp. 8-9 & Narrate (oral)
Day 7 - Mid-Lesson Experiment: Glider Design T p. 10, NJ p. 13
Day 8 - Read T pp. 12-17 & Narrate (oral)
Day 9 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 14
Day 10 - Notebook Activity: Habitats, Instinct, Extinction T p. 18, NJ p. 15
Day 11 - Notebook Activity: Biome Research T p. 18, NJ p. 16
Day 12 - Notebook Activity: Make a Field Notebook T p. 18 (OHC)
Day 13 - Project: Nature Scavenger Hunt T. p. 19, NJ p. 17 (OHC)
Day 14 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 18-19
Day 15 - Vocabulary Crosswork NJ pp. 20-21
Day 16 - Zoology Project Page: See suggestions, below, or choose your own
Day 17 - Zoology Minibooks NJ Appendix pp. A5, A7
Day 18 - Begin Lesson 2: "What Makes a Bird a Bird?" - Read T pp. 12-17
Day 19 - Try This! (field markings) T p. 28
Day 20 - Begin Working on "Fascinating Facts About Birds" NJ pp. 25-26

Handbook of Nature Study has an October study on sparrows, and we completed a sparrow study last fall, as well. Here also are links to other nature studies on birds from the OHC.

November

Day 1 - Read T pp. 28-32 & Narrate (oral)
Day 2 - Try This! (field marks) (OHC)
Day 3 - Try This! (bird song) (OHC)
Day 4 - Read T pp. 32-36 & Narrate (oral)
Day 5 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 27
Day 6 - Nature Points: Birds In My Yard T p. 36, NJ p. 28 (OHC)
Day 7 - Notebook Activity: Map a Bird T p. 37, NJ p. 29 (OHC)
Day 8 - Scripture Copywork: NJ pp. 30-31
Day 9 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 32-33
Day 10 - Birds Minibook NJ Appendix p. A11
Day 11 - Project: Build Two Bird Feeders T p. 37, NJ p. 36 (OHC)
Day 12 - Experiment: Which Foods Do Birds Prefer? T p. 39, NJ p. 37 (OHC)
Day 13 - Begin Lesson 3: "Birds of a Feather" -- Read T pp. 41-47 & Narrate (oral)
Day 14 - Try This! (umbrellas and wings) T p. 47
Day 15 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Feathers," NJ pp. 38-39
Day 16 - Read T pp. 47-50; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 17 - Try This! (waterproof feathers) T p. 50
Day 18 - Read T pp. 50-53; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 19 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 40
Day 20 - Notebook Activity: Make a Bird Field Guide T p. 54

Handbook of Nature Study always posts monthly bird lists with suggested birdwatching activities. See their November 2010 and November 2011 lists for ideas for your own birding. See also our feather study, and the numerous entries from HNS that include feather studies: "Aspen Trees in the Fall - Salmon - and a Bear," "Yosemite Birds: Photos and a Notebook Page," "How to Organize Your Nature Notebook Pages." Consider signing your family up for Project Feeder Watch (from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology), an international research project on birds that frequent feeders.

December

Day 1 - Begin a life list T p. 54, NJ p. 41
Day 2 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 42-43
Day 3 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 44-45
Day 4 - Feathers Minibook NJ Appendix p. A 13
Day 5 - Project: Build a Bird Bath* T p. 55, NJ p. 48 (OHC)
Day 6 - Experiment: The Best Bird Bath* T p. 55, NJ p. 49 (OHC)
Day 7 - Begin Lesson 4: "Flying Factuals" -- Read T pp. 57-61 & Narrate (oral)
Day 8 - Try This! (chicken bone) T p. 57
Day 9 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Flying," NJ pp. 50-51
Day 10 - Read T pp. 61-63; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 11 - Try This! (homing instinct) T p. 63
Day 12 - Read T pp. 63-65; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 13 - Read T pp. 65-70 & Narrate (oral)
Day 14 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 52
Day 15 - Nature Points T p. 71 (birdwatching) (OHC)
Day 16 - Notebook Activity: Migration Route Map T p. 71, NJ p. 53 (OHC)
Day 17 - Notebook Activity: Local Birds Migration Activity T p. 71, NJ p. 54 (OHC)
Day 18 - Experiment: Which Color Do Birds Prefer? T p. 72, NJ p. 55 (OHC)
Day 19 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 56-57
Day 20 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 58-59

[Draw a line under the last item you studied, in the Table of Contents of the student textbook.]

If it is too cold for bird bath work where you live, substitute another activity and experiment. Better yet, purchase an inexpensive heated birdbath for your deck or porch railing - lack of open water is a major reason that some birds leave an area in the winter, if there is adequate food. You will be amazed at the increase in activity at your feeder if you have fresh water available, at any time of the year.

American Robin has online resources to complete an entire, year-long study on robins and their migration, nesting and feeding habits, called Journey North. The site is part of a project where participants log in their sightings to learn more about these harbingers of spring. You could actually use the materials here (complete with notebooking pages and data tools) for your entire year of nature study, to go along with "Flying Creatures."

The Burgess Bird Book for Children is a wonderful read-aloud to include when you study bird migration. It introduces birds in the order in which they would return to the Northeastern United States in the spring, so you might have to do the chapters out of order so that you can read along as you study the birds in your area.

January

Exam Week:

Most important to me when I teach science to children is that they understand WHY something works, rather than the memorization of random facts. You can choose to simply grade items from above as you go, or provide an exam week. We have done things both ways. The thing I like about an exam week is that it adds an element of seriousness to our studies to counteract our sometimes laid back approach to things. At any rate, it's something that works for us, and you can decide for yourselves what works best for your family. Here is a list of questions I would use for an exam week.

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Day 1 - Oral Narration: "Read through the topics you studied this term. Choose one, and tell me everything that you learned about that topic so far."
Day 2 - Written Narration: "Read through the topics you studied this term. Choose one that is different from the one you chose yesterday. Summarize what you learned about the topic, making sure you include two important details and one interesting fact, and explaining one new vocabulary word that you learned." [NOTE: For students grade 3 or younger, you can substitute another oral narration for the written narration question.]
Day 3 - Notebook: "Choose one notebook or journal entry from this term. State one thing that was a strength of the entry, and one thing you would do differently. Then summarize your learning."
Day 4 - Projects: "Choose one project you completed for zoology or nature study this term. Describe the topic of the project, the main thing the project taught you, and the important details that you learned."
Day 5 - Experiments: "Choose one experiment you conducted this term. Summarize your learning from the experiment, then describe how you might modify the experiment next time to make the experiment stronger."

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Day 6 - Lesson 4 ("Flying Factuals"), cont'd -- Bird Project Page for extra projects NJ p. 62 (OHC)
Day 7 - Migration Minibook NJ Appendix p. A17
Day 8 - Begin Lesson 5": Nesting -- Read T pp. 73-78
Day 9 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Nesting," NJ p. 63
Day 10 - Read T pp. 78-84; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 11 - Try This! (building a nest)
Day 12 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 64
Day 13 - Nature Points (dead trees) T p. 85 (OHC)
Day 14 - Notebook Activity: Draw Bird Nests T p. 85, NJ pp. 65-67 (OHC)
Day 15 - Notebook Activity: Local Nesting Habits T p. 85, NJ p. 68 (OHC)
Day 16 - Notebook Activity: Make an Advertisement T p. 85, NJ p. 69
Day 17 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 70-71
Day 18 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 72-73
Day 19 - Nesting Minibooks NJ Appendix p. A 21
Day 20 - Project: Build a Bird House T p. 86, NJ p. 76

For those of you who like to get involved in volunteer-driven research, look into Nest Watch, another research project from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Like Project Feeder Watch, it depends entirely on thousands of volunteers to gather data from their own locations. Unlike Feeder Watch, it takes a little more effort on the part of the participant, as you need to 1) find a nest (not as easy as finding a bird on your feeder!) and 2) visit the nest as frequently as you can to collect data on the nesting habit of the bird. Our family has participated in Feeder Watch for many years, but we also helped with Nest Watch for about four years. Well worth your time, and you will learn a lot.

Winter time is a great time to scope out nesting areas, when the leaves are off the trees and the nests are exposed to view. We collected bird's nests one year -- had a whole line of them on the screen porch. HNS has a great blog entry with links to resources for study of bird's nests in winter, as well as a general article on turning your yard into a wildlife habitat, great reading for when the nursery catalogs begin arriving in January. See also the information on Barb's e-book on Winter Nature Study.

February

Day 1 - Experiment: Which Nest Material? T p. 88, NJ p. 77 (OHC)
Day 2 - Begin Lesson 6: "Matching & Hatching" -- Read T pp. 89-95 & Narrate (oral)
Day 3 - Try This! (egg structure), T p. 95 (OHC)
Day 4 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Matching & Hatching, " NJ pp. 78-79
Day 5 - Read T pp. 95-99; add to "Fascinating Facts."
Day 6 - Try This! (egg strength) T p. 96
Day 7 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 80
Day 8 - Nature Points (baby birds) T p. 100 (OHC)
Day 9 - Notebook Activity: Life of a Bird Comic Strip T p. 100, NJ p. 81
Day 10 - Scripture Copywork - NJ pp. 82-83
Day 11 - Vocabulary Crossword - NJ pp. 84-85
Day 12 - Matching & Hatching Ninibook NJ Appendix p. A31
Day 13 - My Project Page for extra projects NJ p. 88 (see suggestions, below, or choose your own) (OHC)
Day 14 - Experiment: Candling T p. 101, NJ p. 89 (OHC)
Day 15 - Optional Experiment: Do Eggs Absorb Water? T p. 102, NJ p. 90
Day 16 - Begin Lesson 7: Bats -- Read T pp. 103-107
Day 17 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Bats," NJ p. 91
Day 18 - Read T pp. 108-113; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 19 - Try This! (how many mosquitoes...) T p. 108
Day 20 - Try This! (big ears) T p. 110

If you are participating in Nest Watch and are vigilant about returning to a new nest, you might be able to get an eyewitness view of bird eggs in the wild. If not, see this HNS observation of a quail nest, or watch the video clip, below, of a hummingbird nest.

Handbook of Nature Study has a number of entries about bats, including one on the bat's sense of hearing, a spring bat study, a winter bat study, and many others. See also our nature study on bats.

March

Day 1 - Lesson 7 (cont'd) - Try This! (estimation), T p. 113
Day 2 - Read T pp. 114-117 & Narrate (oral)
Day 3 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 92
Day 4 - Notebook Activity: Microbats & Megabats T p. 117, NJ p. 93
Day 5 - Notebook Activity: Hibernation Report T p. 117, NJ p. 94 (OHC)
Day 6 - Notebook Activity: Megabat & Microbat Meeting T p. 118, NJ p. 95
Day 7 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 96-97
Day 8 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 98-99
Day 9 - Bat Minibook NJ Appendix p. A35
Day 10 - Project: Find Your Pup T p. 118, NJ p. 102
Day 11 - Begin Lesson 8: "Flying Reptiles" -- Read T pp. 119-123 & Narrate (oral)
Day 12 - Try this! (clues) T p. 120
Day 13 - Begin "Fascinating Facts About Pterosaurs," NJ p. 103
Day 14 - Read T pp. 123-126; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 15 - Read T pp. 127-129; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 16 - Try This! (pterosaur wings) T p. 127
Day 17 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 104
Day 18 - Notebook Activity: Make a Pterosaur Book T p. 129, NJ p. 105
Day 19 - Notebook Activity: Pterosaur Eggs T p. 129, NJ p. 107
Day 20 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 108-109

When we first started homeschooling, we discovered (with the help of Ambleside Online), a lovely little book called The Burgess Animal Book for Children. It is a great introduction into animal classification, and a nice read-aloud for the younger child (our son was a second grader when we started reading it). You can read it straight through, learning about the different taxoomic groupings of animals, or read individual chapters about the animal you're studying, such as the bat. Ambleside provides an online taxonomic key to the animals in the book, with corrections for newer thinking.

Our previous house had a family of bats that would roost in the louvers of the vent in the attic, so we built a bat house, and mounted it next to the attic vent, to lure them away from the house. The National Wildlife Federation has a ton of plans for bat houses (which we built with a 7-yr-old and a 9-yr-old).

It is hard to do a nature study on prehistoric flying reptiles, but you might consider adding a field trip to collect fossils or visit a museum to your March study. We made plaster casts of dinosaur footprints at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.

April

Exam Week:

Day 1 - Oral Narration: "Read through the topics you studied this term. Choose one, and tell me everything that you learned about that topic so far."
Day 2 - Written Narration: "Read through the topics you studied this term. Choose one that is different from the one you chose yesterday. Summarize what you learned about the topic, making sure you include two important details and one interesting fact, and explaining one new vocabulary word that you learned." [NOTE: For students grade 3 or younger, you can substitute another oral narration for the written narration question.]
Day 3 - Notebook: "Choose one notebook or journal entry from this term. State one thing that was a strength of the entry, and one thing you would do differently. Then summarize your learning."
Day 4 - Projects: "Choose one project you completed for zoology or nature study this term. Describe the topic of the project, the main thing the project taught you, and the important details that you learned."
Day 5 - Experiments: "Choose one experiment you conducted this term. Summarize your learning from the experiment, then describe how you might modify the experiment next time to make the experiment stronger."

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Day 6 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ p. 110
Day 7 - Pterosaur Minibook NJ Appendix p. A37
Day 8 - Project: Make a Fossil Egg T p. 130, NJ p. 113
Day 9 - Begin Lesson 9: "A First Look at Insects" - Read T pp. 131-135 & Narrate (oral)
Day 10 - Try This! (insect observation) T p. 135 (OHC)
Day 11 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Insects," NJ pp. 114-115
Day 12 - Read T pp. 135-141; add to "Fascinating Facts"
Day 13 - Read T pp. 141-143; add to "Fascinating Facts"
Day 14 - Try This! (exothermia) T p. 143 (OHC)
Day 15 - Read T pp. 143-144; add to "Fascinating Facts"
Day 16 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 116
Day 17 - Nature Points (nature observations) T p. 145 (OHC)
Day 18 - Notebook Activity: Draw an Insect T p. 145, NJ p. 117 (OHC)
Day 19 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 118-119
Day 20 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 120-121

There are so many entries about insects in both the Handbook of Nature Study and A Child's Garden, that you should just go to the home page of each and search using the term "insect," or even the particular insect that you are studying, to find nature study ideas. Also read about individual insects of interest in The Handbook of Nature Study (the book, not the website), for many ideas on how to conduct a nature study.

May

Day 1 - Insect Minibook NJ Appendix p. A39
Day 2 - Project: Create an Insect Zoo T p. 145, NJ p. 124
Day 3 - Begin Lesson 10: "Insect Life Cycles and Life Styles" - Read T pp. 147-154 & Narrate (oral)
Day 4 - Try This! (insect eggs), T p. 148 (OHC)
Day 5 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Insect Life Cycles," NJ p. 125
Day 6 - Read T pp. 154-160; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 7 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Insect Life Styles," NJ pp. 126-127
Day 8 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 128
Day 9 - Nature Points: Insect Defense T p. 160, NJ p. 129 (OHC)
Day 10 - Notebook Activity: Life Cycle Charts T p. 161, NJ pp. 130-131
Day 11 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 132-133
Day 12 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 134-135
Day 13 - Insect Life Cycle and Life Style Minibook NJ Appendix p. A41
Day 14 - Project: Insect Display & Relaxer T p. 161, NJ p. 138 (OHC)
Day 15 - Experiment: Can Trap Experiment T p. 162, NJ p. 139 (OHC)
Day 16 - Begin Lesson 11: Social Insects -- Read T pp. 163-169
Day 17 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Social Insects" NJ pp. 140-141
Day 18 - Read T pp. 169-174; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 19 - Read T pp. 174-180; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 20 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 142

In our house, we've raised so many different kinds of critters in terraria, aquaria, bug zoos, mayonnaise jars and plastic deli containers, that I can't count them all. In this article on observation, I share some of the many insects for teaching observation (as well as other small creatures), with some tips on which critters worked best for us, and for what objective.

June

Day 1 - Nature Points (dead log) T p. 181 (OHC)
Day 2 - Notebook Activity: Make a Bee Book T p. 181, NJ p. 143
Day 3 - Bee Book Paste Page NJ p. 145
Day 4 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 146-147
Day 5 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 148-149
Day 6 - Social Insects Minibook NJ Appendix p. A45
Day 7 - Project: Make an Ant Farm T p. 181, NJ p. 152 (OHC)
Day 8 - Experiment: Learning About Ants T p. 182, NJ p. 153 (OHC)
Day 9 - Begin Lsson 12: "Beetles, Flies, and True Bugs" - Read T pp. 183-192 & Narrate (oral)
Day 10 - Try This! (fly observation) T p. 192 (OHC)
Day 11 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Beetles, Flies and True Bugs," NJ pp. 154-155
Day 12 - Read T pp. 192-196; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 13 - Try This! (water strider) T. p. 196 (OHC)
Day 14 - Written Narration: "What Do You Remember?" NJ p. 156
Day 15 - Nature Points (insect observations), T p. 197 (OHC)
Day 16 - Notebook Activity: Write a Letter About Avoiding Mosquito Bites T p. 197, NJ p. 157
Day 17 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 158-159
Day 18 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ p. 160
Day 19 - Beetle Minibook NJ Appendix p. A47
Day 20 - Bug Project Page for extra projects NJ p. 163 (OHC)

So many options for nature study when we get to the insects! See HNS for a bee challenge, an ant challenge, a housefly challenge, a mosquito challenge, and a ladybug challenge. (NOTE: the mosquito challenge also addresses their sense of smell -- an activity that would be helpful with the activity on Day 16). Also know that there are many, many more insect entries that will give you ideas for this month.

We have a humongous colony of Citronella ants that inhabited the brick edging of our south-facing flower bed -- see "Citronella Ants Go Marching" and "Ants, Termites and Ant Lions" for some photos and nature study ideas for this, and other, insect species.

July

Exam Week:

Day 1 - Oral Narration: "Read through the topics you studied this term. Choose one, and tell me everything that you learned about that topic so far."
Day 2 - Written Narration: "Read through the topics you studied this term. Choose one that is different from the one you chose yesterday. Summarize what you learned about the topic, making sure you include two important details and one interesting fact, and explaining one new vocabulary word that you learned." [NOTE: For students grade 3 or younger, you can substitute another oral narration for the written narration question.]
Day 3 - Notebook: "Choose one notebook or journal entry from this term. State one thing that was a strength of the entry, and one thing you would do differently. Then summarize your learning."
Day 4 - Projects: "Choose one project you completed for zoology or nature study this term. Describe the topic of the project, the main thing the project taught you, and the important details that you learned."
Day 5 - Experiments: "Choose one experiment you conducted this term. Summarize your learning from the experiment, then describe how you might modify the experiment next time to make the experiment stronger."

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Day 6 - Lesson 12 (cont'd) - Experiment: Where Do Most Insects Prefer to Live? T p. 197, NJ p. 164 (OHC)
Day 7 - Begin Lesson 13 - "Interesting Insects" - Read T pp. 199-204 & Narrate (oral)
Day 8 - Try This! (sound) T p. 204
Day 9 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Interesting Insects" NJ p. 165
Day 10 - Read T pp. 204-210; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 11 - Written Narration: What Do You Remember? NJ p. 166
Day 12 - Nature Points (grasshoppers and relatives) T p. 211 (OHC)
Day 13 - Notebook Activity: Interesting Insects T p. 211, NJ p. 167
Day 14 - Notebook Activity: Flash Cards T p. 211, NJ Appendix p. A53
Day 15 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 168-169
Day 16 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 170-171
Day 17 - Interesting Insects Project Page for extra projects NJ p. 173 (OHC)
Day 18 - Experiment: Which Environment Does a Cricket Prefer? T p. 211, NJ p. 174 (OHC)
Day 19 - Begin Lesson 14: "Order Lepidoptera" - Read T pp. 213-219
Day 20 - Begin working on "Fascinating Facts About Lepidoptera," NJ pp. 175-176

July is a great time to begin to look for butterflies. See butterfly Outdoor Hour Challenge on HNS. We were fortunate to be able to study a Humming (Sphinx) Moth -- follow the link for information on planing a butterfly garden, too. If you want to raise your own butterflies or moths, purchase silk worms or painted lady caterpillars. Even more fun is to collect caterpillars and raise them in a terrarium (making sure to include twigs of whatever you found them eating). If you are really lucky, you can search under a hickory tree for the giant larva of the beautiful green Luna moth -- a caterpillar that has to overwinter as a cocoon in your refrigerator before emerging late the next summer. This was always a treat for us.

August

Day 1 - Lesson 14 (cont'd) - Read T pp. 219-225; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 2 - Read T pp. 225-228; add to "Fascinating Facts..."
Day 3 - Try This! (Venn), T p. 226, NJ p. 177
Day 4 - Notebook Activity: Make a Poster T p. 229
Day 5 - Scripture Copywork NJ pp. 178-179
Day 6 - Vocabulary Crossword NJ pp. 180-181
Day 7 - Lepidopter Minibooks NJ Appendix p. A 59
Day 8 - Lep Project Page for extra projects NJ p. 184 (OHC)
Day 9 - Experiment: Do Caterpillars Use Gravity or Light? T p. 230, NJ p. 185 (OHC)
Remainder of the month: See "notebooking" section for September.

A Nighttime Surprise: Spotted Salamanders

2012-04-16T07:47:00.002-07:00

Every year, since our oldest children were tiny, we held a family contest to see who would be the first one to discover a spotted salamander in the spring time. This year, the prize goes to my eldest son, Evan, who spotted (haha) this beauty in the road as he was coming home from work one evening.

Spotted salamanders are fairly common in our part of Connecticut, although most people don't see them (unless they know to look for them). They are usually the easiest to find in the early spring (April), when the air is still cool but the water is no longer frozen. If you want to spot someone like this fellow, here, your best bet is to drive a dark road at night, especially one that borders a swampy or marshy area.

You will find dozens of spotted salamanders slowly crossing the road toward their breeding areas. (Last year, my son and his girlfriend spent about an hour, in the rain, moving salamanders across the road. They are commonly hit by cars during breeding season -- some locations post signs warning motorists of their presence).

When not heading toward their breeding areas, these nocturnal critters spend their time hidden in dark, damp locations. (The winner of our annual contest nearly always found the first salamander in the wood chip or compost pile while dressing spring flower beds).

Salamanders of Connecticut

There are a number of salamanders native to Connecticut, but I have only seen three of them in my outdoor experiences: the spotted salamander, the red-backed salamander, and the red eft. The pictures below are from Connecticut Amphibians.

Spotted Salamander

This is one of the larger salamanders in Connecticut (about 6 inches long or more, and chubby), and belongs to the group called the mole salamanders. Like most salamanders, it is nocturnal. It lays its eggs in large, gelatinous masses in marshy areas. I've never been good at telling the difference between toad, salamander and frog eggs -- I always rely on my naturalist, salamander-rescuing son to help me out.

They eat worms and insects and other smallish creatures. They are fairly slow moving, and very interesting to examine. They do not live well in a terrarium, so observe them and let them go.

I read that these salamanders live 10 years or more. I think that's amazing.

Red-backed Salamander

One of the most abundant salamanders in Connecticut, it is hard to turn over a log or rock without finding several red-backed salamanders in some parts of the state. They do not depend as heavily on water as the other salamanders, and spend their entire life on land, only needed damp areas to complete their life cycle, but not standing water.

They are easy to identify, with their slender dark brown or gray bodies, and the reddish-brown, wide band along the length of their body. Their tails are very long, making their bodies about 3 inches long, but they are very slim.

These are fast moving, hearty little fellows, and can be kept for a period of time in a terrarium (kept moist), if fed ants, aphids and other small insects.

Red Eft (Red-Spotted Newt)

I loved this little fellow when I was a child. The red eft is a common resident of wet areas (although they seem to be particular in their locations, as I have not seen one where I live now, but they were quite common when I was growing up). The red eft is a bright red-orange color, with brilliant red spots bordered by a fine black ring.

One of the most interesting parts of the red eft life cycle is that they begin it, and end it, as aquatic creatures. Unlike most salamanders, which look somewhat like tadpoles as aquatic juveniles, then emerge to finish their lives as terrestrial creatures, the red eft spends about 3 years as a, well, red eft, then returns to the water, where it becomes greener (still retaining the red spots), grows gills again, and develops caudal fins so the tail becomes a rudder.

Studying Spotted Salamanders

Inside Preparation

1. Read pp. 187-192 in the Handbook of Nature Study. You might also find websites such as Connecticut Amphibians helpful, for more information on the specific salamanders you might find in your area.

2. Gather supplies that you will need for your outdoor excursion: flashlights, clipboards and sketching materials (remember that you will be observing at night time, so you won't be lingering a long time to draw in the dark). We have had luck bringing a digital camera and taking pictures by the light of the car headlights. Bug spray is probably a good idea, and any other mosquito protection you might need (remember, you'll be in mosquito heaven where you'll be salamander hunting!).

Salamander Observations

1. You will have the best chance of seeing spotted salamanders in late winter or early spring (here, in Connecticut, we find them in late March or early April, depending on the weather). Salamanders like very cold water for their egg-laying, but they are cold-blooded, so the air temperature has to be warm enough for them to move, but not so warm that the water is too warm for their eggs.

2. Dark roads along a marshy or swampy area are the best places to look for spotted salamanders. If you are not sure where to look, contact your local environmental agency, parks and recreation department, or university for information. Or ask other naturalists that you know.

3. When you find the salamanders, they will be moving slowly (remember, they are cold-blooded), and will likely be crossing the road from woods to water. [NOTE: Animals such as frogs, salamanders and turtles, that move from woods or field to water to mate, and cross the road in the process, will only recross the road if you put them back where they came from. If you want to help them, carry them across the road in the direction they are heading. Their instinct will take over if you put them back, and they will just head to the road again.]

4. Handle the salamanders carefully, as their bodies are soft and easily damaged.

Describe the area where you found the salamander. Is it dry or wet? Is there water nearby? What type of body of water is it? Make a quick sketch of the area, showing what the salamander was leaving, the road and where the salamander was going.
Describe the movement of the salamander. What words describe the movement? Was it fast or slow? Notice how the salamander moves its legs. Does it move both legs on one side first, then the other, or does it criss-cross (right front and back left then vice versa)?
Sketch or photograph the salamander. Carefully count the number of spots on its back (some variations or species of creatures are distinguished by the number and arrangement of the spots).
Carefully pick up the salamander and observe its face. Draw a quick sketch of its face, paying attention to the pupil of the eye (the black part), which is an interesting shape in salamanders. [NOTE: Do not take a close-up flash photograph of the salamander's face -- how would you like that?]
Carefully examine the feet. Sketch or photograph the front foot, and then the back foot. Do they look the same? If they are different, why do you think they are?
Measure the body and tail. Are they the same length? [NOTE: This is a fine opportunity to teach your kids about using non-standard units of measure, such as finger joints, to approximate measure. We don't always have a ruler, but we always have our fingers!]
Observe the salamander on the ground. Return the salamander to the marshy area. What does it do? Where does it go?

Follow-up Work

Enchanted Learning has study sheets on salamanders, showing their life cycle, and the red eft life cycle. There are also blank cycle organizers for you to review the salamander life cycle, using drawings or copies of your photographs to complete the organizer.

The Notebooking Treasury is having a spring sale on their nature study materials. Click the link below for more details.

NotebookingPages.com 2012 Nature Study Sale

Books for Your Library

Our March Bark Walk on the Nipmuck Trail-- and a Nasty Old Friend

2012-03-31T14:01:00.002-07:00

I don't know what the weather is like there, but our month of summer weather, long nights under starlit skies, and shorts gave way to more realistic March weather for New England -- a dusting of wet, sloppy snow today. Although it's not the 3" they were warning us about, and it really isn't cold, the snow was a reminder that we are, in fact, still in March, when just about any type of weather is possible.

A couple of weeks ago, we all took advantage of a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and took a family walk down to the Nipmuck Trail, part of the "blue-blazed" trail system established in many states. Because it was too early for a lot of other spring changes, we referred to this walk as a "bark walk," and we took the time to quiz one another's plant ID skills based on buds and bark, alone.
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The Nipmuck Trail, Willington, Connecticut

Mr. B and I have decided that, being over 50, we need to be a little more assertive with our exercise program. Living so close to a well-marked trail system has distinct benefits. Hubby is recovering from a winter ankle sprain (I told him to tell folks he was Irish step-dancing or he had a rough landing while paragliding, but he simply missed a step while walking downstairs, and sat on his own foot -- being a rather large fellow, this was not a good thing). In my efforts to wait on him in the early days of his recovery, I, in turn, stubbed a pinky toe that I had broken about 4 years ago, rebreaking it. So putting on shoes, let alone hiking, was a big accomplishment on this day!

The blue trail head is clearly marked on our, and the volunteer parks and recreation crew (of which our eldest son, Evan, is a member) does a nice job of keeping the trail passable with minimal disturbance to the environment. The trail, itself, is clearly marked. You can expect to see a variety of spring wildlife in a normal spring -- our dry weather has seriously reduced the availability of vernal pools for migrating waterfowl and spring peepers.

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An Unusual Spring...

The warm weather has caused all the buds to swell. All they need is a few days of wet weather, and they will just about burst. The local daffodil festivals are worried about the earliness of warm weather, and suspect that the festivals will occur, without the flowers for which they are named, as most daffodils have been in bloom for quite awhile now.

The saucer magnolia at our house, which normally reaches full bloom mid-April, is already in full bloom.

We normally hike along the woodland trails more extensively, but Mr. B was terribly worried about stumbling on a rock or root, and undoing the fine progress that all of his hill climbing has done toward healing his injured ankle. We saved more rough terrain for another hike, and stuck to more level or paved paths for that day.

The Connecticut Forest and Parks Association has a website on the development, location and characteristics of the various trails in Connecticut's Blue-blazed Trail System. Our nearby trail also extends into Massachusetts. The majority of these trails are well documented, and you can find very specific descriptions of markers, paths, grade and intensity level for most of them. Our closest trail is ideal for families with small children, as it has little grade change, and, with the exception of a few climbs over fallen trees, is easy walking.

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A Prehistoric Princess, and a Scientific Thought

The forest floor was carpeted with Princess-Pine, an evergreen plant which isn't really a pine at all, but is actually a clubmoss, a group of ancient plants that were around in the days of the dinosaurs. The cool, deciduous forests of Connecticut suit the needs of this plant very nicely, and it is a welcome bit of green-ness for early spring hikers, like us.

We just take pictures of most things we see as we hike. Princess-Pine grows from rhizomes, root-like underground stems, so attempts to pluck a sprig may end up uprooting an entire patch.

Folklore has it that lichens and moss favor the north side of a tree. I am not sure if this lichen was on the north face of the tree trunk, or not, but that sounds like a great experiment to do.

H(0): Lichens and mosses are equally abundant on the north, south, east and west sides of a tree trunk.

H(a): Lichens and mosses are more abundant on the north face of a tree trunk.

We would have to choose one kind of tree to study: remember, you want to control everything but the dependent variable (the abundance of lichens and moss). Likewise, it would be best to study in just one location.

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The Bark Walk (and a Poisonous Surprise)

We had fun with this tree. My husband, who is learning a lot about plants, living with so many horticulturists in the family, recognized this as resembling a birch tree, and, in fact, he was right, as this is a gray birch (the shiny gray cousin to the more familiar paper birch, which is also prevalent in our forests here). My grandfather used to surprise us as children by going off into the woods with his pocketknife, to get special sticks for us when we used to toast marshmallows at camp. He always brought back these delicious, wintergreen-smelling wonders, which I now know came from the gray birch.

He used to also bake these little pies out of buttered bread and apple slices, in a special press that he held over the fire. When he passed away, it was one of the treasures that was passed along to me. I can't wait to use it this summer with my kids.

Connecticut's state flower is the Mountain-laurel, a cousin to the rhododendrons and azaleas. Here is a patch of baby ones. The mature ones should be flowering within the month: they flower before most of the rhododendrons and azaleas.

Our elder two sons are team leaders at a large wholesale nursery in the state, and have been busy packing and shipping mountain-laurels, rhododendrons and azaleas all over the country. Six a.m. starts and 7 p.m. finishes make for a tired young man.

Last summer, Mr. B was helping a neighbor get his yard in order. Being the helpful guy that he is, he volunteered for the tough task of subduing the hedges. I had told him to be careful of poison ivy, which I had noticed in the grass on the outside of the hedge. In the middle of the job, he called me over to remind him where it was. Sadly, he had already trimmed and weedwhacked it. Doubly sad was the fact that he had removed his shirt on this very hot day, and his body was flecked all over with the tiniest pieces of green, from the top of his head to the top of his socks. Every green speck found a sweaty, hot place to stick and hang out for a good long while, apparently, because he contracted the saddest case of poison-ivy that I have seen in a full grown man.

When we happened upon this next item, he asked about the hairy vine crawling up the tree trunk, and stepped far away when I identified it as his old nemesis, poison-ivy.

Now, in the fall, the poison-ivy leaves turn a beautiful maroon. Most folks recognize the three-leaflets of this sumac relative, but either don't recognize the winter vine, or don't suspect it as being as allergenic as the leaves. I once got a terrible case of poison ivy from raking dead leaves out of a farm cellar doorway. Being fall allergy season, I also must have rubbed my eyes and blown my nose, because I woke up the next morning and didn't recognize the woman in the mirror, whose face was as round as a full moon. Awful stuff. The roots, dried leaves and hairy vines are as bothersome as the green leaves, so be careful chipping wood that has vines growing on it -- you'll end up with a fine crop of poison-ivy in your flower beds. This also happened to us one year. More fun with poison-ivy!

This is an interesting picture. If you look closely, you'll notice a whorl of vines around this guardrail. Every guardrail was surrounded by the same whorl of vines. My husband remarked how odd it looked, and asked what kind of vine it was. I just started to laugh, and he said, "No way. You're kidding, right?" I was not.

Did you know that birds love the berries on poison-ivy? The non-descript flowers produce clusters of white berries, which many birds love. I constantly pull seedling poison-ivy out of my flower beds. I envision birds sitting atop each of these wooden guardrails, eating and pooping, and spreading a little poison-ivy love, all up and down the road.

If your pets like to roam the woods, be careful that you don't mistakenly pick up the oil from poison-ivy from their fur.

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March Treasures...

By now, Mr. B's ankle was telling him to go back home (you can see that he had a trusty staff to steady himself at the end). Plus I think he had started itching, just thinking about the abundance of poison-ivy that he had seen on our March bark walk.

Malik had collected a sparkly quartz rock, Mom had snapped a bunch of photos, and the dog needed a drink of water (which a kind neighbor had ready for him when we made our way back down the road -- what a blessing!).

We stopped by a clump of forsythia to cut some branches to force inside. I added them to a vase of multiflora rose hips that I cut last fall (do you know that those rose twigs rooted? No wonder the plant is so invasive...).

The smallest member of our hiking crew still had enough energy for a tree climb later in the day. Mom & Dad relaxed inside, and the dog found his doggy bed to be a welcome spot for a little nap.

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If you want to do more research on poison-ivy, visit The Handbook of Nature Study for "Poison Oak, Poison Ivy and Poison Sumac: Leaves of Three!"

HNS also has a nice study of flowerless plants, such as mosses, ferns, and our friend, the Princess-Pine, in "What are Flowerless Plants?" Apologia has a free set of botany notebooking pages that you can use to record your observations of these, and other, plants

Spring is a nice time to begin a year-long tree study -- see Outdoor Hour Challenge, Spring Series #1: Year-long Tree Study, for details.

Homeschooling, Homesteading and Home-making: Links, Links and More Links!

2012-03-20T03:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Spring, Everyone!

If you're like me, you get a lot of email. Unlike you (maybe), I love to read almost everything I get -- there are so many interesting things to learn and do, that I just can't choose!

Here is what caught my eye this month -- maybe they'll catch yours, as well:

Helpful Hints for Homeschoolers

Here are some links and resources that fellow homeschoolers might be interested in.

New to notebooking? Check out the many Free Notebooking Pages at NotebookingPages.com and get started today! Be sure to sign up for free email updates, and you will get freebies (real ones, not fake ones) and opportunities for special subscriber discounts. Better yet, buy a membership and get all the notebooking materials you could ever want.

By the same creative homeschool mom is Mom's Toolbelt, a set of downloadable and printable resources for organizing your very busy life. Get the same email updates and freebies offer with a free subscription, and access to lots of information and material with a paid subscription.

The Calvert School offers many high-quality homeschool curricula, classes and services, for free and for fee. I ordered A Child's History of the World as a course (textbook, workbook, and teacher's manual). If you are interested in ordering their materials, or are just wondering what materials you might use for your own homeschooling child, you can find a lot of information on their website. Sign up for one of their free homeschool webinars: today's was on "Managing Your Middle Schooler at Home."

For Homeschool or Classroom

The Handbook of Nature Study is an invaluable resource for anyone using nature study as a core part of the science curriculum. Here are three resources that I, personally, rely upon for ideas and information (click on images for more information):

Paperback version of the classic by
Anna Botsford Comstock. Available for around $10 and up, from a number of vendors. Or borrow a copy from your local library (I did, but decided that I wanted a copy for my own. It cost me $12 on Amazon).

Nothing is better than free (many times, anyway). Read HNS online, or download an electronic copy in a number of formats, for readers, laptop or phone reading.

Barbara McCoy, homeschool mom, blogger and writer, has a blog where she posts a ton of ideas for well-integrated nature studies, using the Handbook of Nature Study as a text. You could use just her website for a nearly complete science curriculum. Her latest entry: "Magnets, Compass, and Moon Study in Our Neighborhood." All include links, readings, suggested activities, and downloadable materials. She also bundles a season's worth of activities in a convenient downloadable e-text, available for purchase (the e-text includes "freebies" not previously posted).

Homesteading

We have had summer weather in March, here in Connecticut. And last weekend had everyone in the neighborhood out "farming" in their front yards. Several families in my neighborhood are getting together to create a community garden, and there has been much talk of which veggies each of us will start. Here are some links to get you going:

Mother Earth News magazine (one of my favorites) has an article on Best-Tasting Tomatoes: 56 Heirloom Tomatoes Rated Excellent for Flavor , as well as an article on heirloom seeds (Fedco Seeds: Heirloom Seed Highlights from the 2012 Catalog). There's a reason why these varieties have been around as long as they have... Download the MEN app for your smartphone, tablet or computer for electronic reading. Electronic version comes free with a paper magazine subscription (or read articles for free right on their website). Sign up for their "Vegetable Garden Planner Newsletter and Planting Guide", and get a trial subscription to the Garden Planner.

I just had to have it! Buy the Gardmann R686 4-Tier Greenhouse Kit (around $39 on Amazon) for starting those heirloom seeds early. It just snaps together in minutes. While you're at it, get a supply of seed trays, also at Amazon.

While you're at it, order the complete archive of MEN issues for 2011 - on DVD for $35 -- see their website for details.

Homemaking

While Googling around (!) one day, I found The Hillbilly Housewife, a website chock full of all kinds of tips and resources for economizing in meal preparation and other areas of your household. I especially liked the articles on how to cut your food bill in 1/2 with a few simple (really) tips. Follow also on Twitter.

I hope you have as much fun with these links as I have. I am excited for spring!

A Child's Garden

A Winter Battle Re-enactment

Ten Helpful Hints to Make a Perfect Stop-Motion Battle Re-enactment

by Guest Blogger, Malik B., Age 9

***There's Still Time!***

Don't forget about the Mid-Winter Give-away...

Click over for more details on how to enter!

Time for a Winter Give-away!

Starting an Animal Survey: Winter Birds and Friends

Watching Our Birds, All Year Long

The First Week of Our Survey

Nifty Sightings for the Week

What We Offered Our Feathered and Furry Friends

Read-Alouds to Go With Your Studies

Squirrel and Bird Nest Study

Read-Alouds:

Lesson Ideas:

Other Resources:

Discussion Ideas:

We Love to Share...

Love One Another...

My First Ten Book Additions to Shelfari!

First Ten Books on Shelfari!

And We Have a Composter Winner!

Kathy Schoenherr

Ten (10) Fall Nature Studies: What the Leaves Have Kept Hidden

1. Lichens & Mosses

2. Bark & Vines

3. Owls

4. Buds

5. Fruits and Berries

6. Old Birds' Nests

7. Rock Walls

8. Mounds and Pits

9. Cones

10. Animal Tracks

Share...

A Great Giveaway! The All Season Indoor Composter

October 2012 Reader Survey

Adventures in Composting: The All-Season Indoor Composter

The Composter

Bokashi - the Fuel for the Composter

Filling the Composter

The Finished Product

My Recommendations

Other Things on My Wishlist at UncommonGoods

Will you help me out?

Signs of Autumn: Our Trip to the Orchard

We're Going to the Orchard!

Our Trip, in Photos

What Signs of Autumn Did We See?

Changes in the Weather

Changes in Nature

Changes in People

Puffballs!

What's a Puffball?

Why Call Them "Puffballs?"

Studying Puffballs

Stay Tuned...

Will you help me out?

The "One Small Square" Strategy: Mushrooms and Other "Fun Guys"

Will you help me out?

September Wildflowers in Connecticut - Our Sock Walk

NEW! Botany Notebooking Pages for Fall...

Beaches, Beaches, Everywhere!

What Color Attracts More Birds? - A Lesson on Fractions

Third Grade 2011-12

You, Too, Can Teach Literacy!

Our Favorite Read-Alouds!

Scheduling Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

Our Zoology Schedule:

A Nighttime Surprise: Spotted Salamanders

Salamanders of Connecticut

Spotted Salamander

Red-backed Salamander

Red Eft (Red-Spotted Newt)

Studying Spotted Salamanders

Inside Preparation

Salamander Observations

Follow-up Work

There's Still Time!