Nature Study Archives - Page 2 of 4

Summer Unschooling

June 5, 2013Tracy

We’ve got a tradition at our house that is now 3 years in the making. Summer school is absolutely the highlight of the year. All of us can hardly wait to close the textbooks and start summer.

I started summer school at the end of Oldest’s K4 year for a few different reasons. First, we love the structure that school brings to our day. Too much unstructured play breeds chaos and bickering at my house. We’re a family that loves a routine and a regular schedule. Second, I didn’t want to spend three months forgetting what we’d just spent months to learn. I wanted something to hold it all in their little heads and to keep it growing.

Thus, summer school was born, but not an endless rhythm of the same lessons: even we need a break. Summer school is our time for nature walks, nature journals, and nature study; science and discovery; messy art and picture studies; classical music, water parties, and mud pie bakeries. It’s not at all “school” in the traditional sense. It’s not even school in the classical sense. It’s more a mixture of Charlotte Mason and unschooling, nurturing a fascination for the beauty of creation.

And our summer studies have been some of our most memorable. Middlest, who was 2 when we had our first “summer school,” loves Handel’s water music and often asks when we will have another water party. Both of the kids light up when they see a waterlily painting; it’s Monet! And the nature journals are close-companions all summer long, including on vacation trips.

So what’s on the agenda for this summer?

Mozart (some read-aloud books and a playlist on my Naxos app for my ipod)
Artistic Pursuits K-3 book 1 (snagged one on Ebay) and lots of chalk art!
Lady Treble and the Seven Notes, as well as some recorder lessons
trees and plants study (thanks to a subscriber freebie from NotebookingPages.com and My Nature Journal)

Let’s break out the swimming pool and turn up the Mozart. It’s time for summer!

Study of a Bug’s Life: Praying Mantis

August 24, 2012Tracy

I love the Lord’s impromptu appearances into our lesson plans, His provision for up-close observation in His always perfect timing. Just before our bug study, we were fellowshipping with friends and happened upon the largest praying mantis I have ever seen.

The children were a little intimidated (I honestly don’t blame them; this was a mammoth insect—and this incident occurred before my kids had been introduced to the plastic variety). I didn’t have my camera with me. But my friend was most obliging and took photos of the giant for me.

insect study for young children

insect study

After we finished our Week of Bugs, I showed the pictures to the kids, and we talked about this event. The kids had warmed up to the mantis, or at least, he wasn’t as intimidating in a photo. They had fun counting his legs and naming his body parts.

The Lord is so good to us, taking notice of something as small as a five year old and a nearly-four year old studying bugs.

Study of a Bug’s Life: Insect Life Stages

August 22, 2012Tracy

The next stop on our Week of Bugs tour was a study of the insect life stages. I read in God’s Design for Life: World of Animals book about complete and incomplete metamorphosis and the different stages of the process. While I was reading, we illustrated the whole process with our very cool plastic insect life stages.

As we read about eggs, I had the kids find all of the eggs from each of the different insect sets. We had a butterfly egg, ant eggs, beetle eggs, praying mantis soft and hard egg cases, and ladybug eggs.

We looked at the praying mantis nymphs and talked about the three stages of incomplete metamorphosis.

When we read about larvae, the kids found all of the plastic insect larvae and lined them up for me. Then, we talked about pupae and the chrysalis.

Last, I had the kids each choose two insects and take me through the complete (or incomplete) metamorphosis. Once again, the plastic insects made teaching and drilling so much fun!

study of insect life stages — Metamorphosis of a Darkling Beetle

study of butterfly life stages — Metamorphosis of a Painted Lady Butterfly

We wrapped up the week with a look at arachnids (spiders and scorpions) and, on the last day, a video about the monarch butterfly.

It was absolutely as much fun as I had hoped it would be. And really, though I had originally planned for our lessons to be once a week for a month, I think it turned out even better to have done it all in one week. Now to go catch some arthropods!

Study of a Bug’s Life: Insect Parts

August 20, 2012Tracy

Our nature study has finally taken us to arthropods. I’ve been eagerly waiting for this all summer. I love bugs! Even spiders. I find them all fascinating. And I’ve been chomping at the bit to share my fascination with the kids. However, with all that life has brought along this summer, my month’s worth of plans became a week’s worth of bugs. Still, the kids learned a lot, and we had tons of fun in the process.

For our study, I used God’s Design for Life: World of Animals book and an old favorite that my mom read to us when I was a kid (the exact book! My mom saved it all these years) All Nature Sings. I used these books as our read-alouds. We began each day reading the Beginner section of the World of Animals chapter. I adapt this as I feel the need. Some days, the beginner section doesn’t cover all I want to cover, so I read the intermediate section for older children. Other days, the intermediate section reads so advanced that I revert back to the beginner section. On most days, however, I can read the Beginner section and add the bolded vocabulary from the intermediate; it’s perfect for us. Then, we’ll read a couple of “bug” stories from All Nature Sings, a book that shows children God’s design and purpose for all those pesky critters.

Because of our animal classifications that we’ve been doing all year in geography, the kids are pretty familiar with the idea of arthropods including insects and spiders. So we began our study by taking a closer look.

On our first day, we learned the parts of an insect. My mom blessed us with some really fun plastic critters that made taking a closer look much less intimidating. We got out our plastic bugs, counted their legs, and named their three body parts. Then, we lined up all of the bugs. The kids took turns working down the line and naming the body parts on each insect (head, thorax, abdomen). It was a fun way to work in repetitive drill.

We left a plastic ant on the table that day so that the kids could name all the parts for Dad when he came home. Even Middlest was able to name off head, thorax, and abdomen.

The kids loved playing with the insects. And to prove to you how well this plastic insect concept worked, here’s the contrast. We went outside later in the week on a bug hunt. I found a dead cicada and called the kids to come take a closer look, count legs, name body parts, etc. Oldest took one look and ran the other way. I finally convinced him that it was dead and harmless; he came just close enough to see what I wanted to point out to him.

Maybe one day I’ll get my timid explorers to hold a real insect. But for now, I’m counting my blessings and thanking God for plastic.

A Homemade Bird feeder

August 10, 2012Tracy

As we finished up our bird study this summer, we also finished our Your Backyard DVD on birds. We’ve had fun trying to identify the different birds in our yard by listening to them, and I really wanted to be able for the kids and I to see a few of our feathered friends. The end of the DVD provided instructions for a homemade bird feeder, and we decided to give it a try.

I happened to have a leftover canola oil bottle that looked like it would work. The kids had a blast scouring our yard for a stick that would work as a stand for the birds. We I cut holes in each side of the container, one nickel-sized hole at 4″ and one smaller hole (just large enough for our stick) at about 1 1/2″. Then I cut holes at the top. The directions from the DVD said to use a wire, but I didn’t have any wire. Instead, I had zip-ties. I worked one through my holes, and we were ready to fill it. The kids, who had watched this section of the DVD, excitedly reminded me of exactly which seeds to use—black oil sunflower seeds. Then, we proudly hung it up in the front yard.

We’ve waited very patiently for the birds to visit our feeder. But unfortunately, we haven’t had any visitors yet. Instead, I am now growing sunflower plants in the bottom of my feeder. Guess it’s time to change the seeds and perhaps its location.

I’m off to google a solution, unless someone has some advice. Any words of wisdom from my wonderful readers?

A Nature Journaling Memory

August 9, 2012Tracy4 Comments

I love our summer nature studies. Oldest has especially bonded with his nature journal this summer. He’s always got it with him, including when we went on vacation. He sat on the balcony of our hotel room and sketched. When we visited with friends, he and my friend’s son sat outside on a rock pile with their nature journals and shared colored pencils.

I consulted two different sources this year: The Handbook of Nature Study and Nature Journaling, both from my library. The Handbook is rather intimidating, I’ll admit—very comprehensive and very hard to use with young children. I always feel like a momma bird when I use the Handbook; I have to read and digest the information and then feed it to my children in small, already-been-chewed bites. But I do understand when others write that you can’t do nature study without it. It is very comprehensive. On the other hand, Nature Journaling is inspiring and inviting. It not only provides ideas for how to have a nature journal but intentionally removes the fear factor. This book is why my son loves his journal.

I haven’t forced a curriculum or made journaling an assignment. When he shows me an entry, I’ll ask him questions that relate to what we’ve been studying. Is it a vertebrate or an invertebrate? What classification is it? But his journal is not purely scientific; it’s a place for him to record his summer memories—the blue-taled skink that regularly visited our front porch, the squirrel they tried to lure with acorns, the varied leaves found in the yard.

His journal is made with my Proclick binder: a piece of cardboard for the backing, some notebooking pages with places to sketch and lines to write on, and a laminated cover.

But it’s not really how I made his journal that makes him love it; it’s about how I’m letting him make his own memories and then experience them a second time on paper.

The life of an amphibian

July 25, 2012Tracy

We’ve made it to amphibians in our summer study of animals and their classifications. Because we spent quite a bit of time last summer on frogs and toads, I hadn’t intended to spend a lot of time on it this summer. But it’s always fun to study tadpoles and polliwogs.

So I picked up a book at our library, printed off some notebooking pages, and sat down with some cool science goodies that my mom sent us a few weeks ago.

First, I read the book to them while they held up the piece that matched the story. Then, I let them look through the book and play with each piece of the frog’s life cycle.

amphibian life cycle lesson for preK and K5

After the kids had touched, held, and played with the pieces for awhile, I pulled out our notebooking page. They studied each stage and then drew it in the boxes of their notebooking sheet. Most of the “art” was pretty easy.

Egg: draw a circle and color a dot in the center; for a spawn, draw several eggs with sides touching.

Tadpole: draw a circle; draw a tale; add a face

With back legs: draw a circle and tale; add back legs and a face

Front and back legs: draw a circle and tale; add back legs, front legs, and a face

Frog: (this is where it got more difficult)

Both of them bawked when I suggested drawing a frog. So we got out our I Can Draw Animals book, turned to the frog page, and drew two very cute frogs!

Notebooking for younger children

But even after the lesson was over, it wasn’t really over. Middlest had all sorts of imaginary adventures for the little frog family; and every time I get them put away, they show up somewhere else.