Today we went with Mr. Bill down Fossil Creek road, just up a couple miles from where we live.  Arizona never ceases to amaze me with its vast diversity!  He took us to see the “tipi’s” which were formed millions of years ago under water.  The formations are called fumeroles which are hot water and air vents.  There are still hot springs nearby, but we didn’t go there.  Being in this area felt eerie and like we were on a different planet.

Phlox

Lichen on the rocks (pronounced Lie-kin)

Strange formations

Hiking with Mr. Bill

Josiah going up the winding staircase

A Praying Mantis Cocoon.  Lots of tiny Praying Mantis's will crawl out of this cocoon

Framed

Eating Red Dock.  Mr. Bill says its like rhubarb.  Well, I've never had rhubarb, so my oppinion is that its like celery because its stringy, only a bit sour.

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Several weeks ago we did our first “official” Nature Study.  We’ve done nature studies before but never called them that.  For our first “official” Nature Study I had everyone, including myself, draw a picture of our sprouting Broccoli that I started indoors.  Here’s the results (notice that some have mushrooms in them as well):

Melody's

Grace's

Josiah's

Lydia's

And mine!

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My son is thoroughly enjoying doing Science experiments from his book.  For some reason, I never thought of just letting him do the experiments on his own.  I always had this idea that we had to do science experiments together as a “class”.  As you can guess, we rarely got around to it.  Josiah was delighted the minute he started doing his first experiment on his own.  I had no trouble getting narrations… oral ones, anyway.  The book we are currently using is called My Big Science Book by Simon Mugford.

He made a little Diver man out of aluminum foil, put a glob of sticky tacky for a weight, and a paper clip to hold his bent straw air tank.  Then the little diver dude was put into the water and the lid closed to the bottle.  When Josiah squeezed the bottle, the diver would go to the bottom of the bottle.  When he let go, the diver soared up to the surface.  The reason for this, in Josiah's own words, "is when you stick him in his tank, the straw is full of air and so he floats.  When you squeeze it , it forces water into the straw and the air pushed out and he goes down to the bottom.  When you let go air goes back in and water forces back out and it floats to the top."

In the next experiment,  Josiah tied a spoon to the middle of a 3 foot string.  He inserted each end of the string into his ears, one in each ear.  Then he banged the spoon onto different hard things such as a table or the metal file cabinet.  BONG!  It sounded like a bell.  Again, according to Josiah, "The reason is because when you hit it the sound travels up the string and you hear the sound like a bell instead of the tapping of a spoon."

"Can I do another one now, Mom?"  nope... gotta wait till next time.  How's that written narration comin along, Josiah?

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Betyr ys a byrd in the hond than tweye in the wode. [c 1470 Harley MS 3362 f.4] 

My bad kitty caught a bird, and I saved it just in time.  I’ve been trying to identify it… but to no avail.  A towhee is the closest I’ve gotten so far.

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One day, when I went to clean the house, I brought with me some photos that I had been wanting to show Bill, and some to give to him from last year when he taught the children to make quail callers.  We both laughed when we came to one picture.  He looks like a combination of an old Irish sailor and an old wrinkly cowboy. 

One picture in particular started quite a story.  It just happens to be the picture that is my profile picture which was taken going toward Strawberry, Arizona near the Mogollon Rim.  A guy he knows went hiking in those canyons and found a cave way up on the cliff of the rim.  Determined to scout out the cave, he went home and got his rock climbing gear and like a spider climbing down her web, he entered the mouth of the dark cave.  It turned out to be the burying place of a Native American chief – probably Apache.  There were many pots, lots of jewelry and other artifacts.  His greedy eyes lit up and out of the mouth of the cave he went LOADED! What he didn’t realize, was that not only does the Indian Nation have motion and sound sensors, but so does the U.S. Government and so as soon as he got back to his truck, both tribe and police were there waiting for him – BOTH armed.  The officer told him that he had a choice: either he could go back and put EVERYTHING back EXACTLY where he found them, or he would walk away and deal with the tribe however they saw fit, who had their rifles pointed at him at that moment.  Of course, he chose the former. 

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Begin by asking the children to span their strings over the most interesting ground they can find.  Give each child a magical magnifying glass, to shrink himself down to the size of an ant.  You may want to ask them questions to stimulate their imaginations: “What kind of world are you traveling through right now?  Who are your nearest neighbors? Are they friendly? Do they work hard? What is that spider going to do – eat you, or take you for a ride? What would it be like to be that metallic green beetle? How does he spend his day?

At the start, tell the children that they must keep their eyes no higher than one foot above the ground.

I clean houses on the side to supplement our income.  There is one house in particular I really enjoy cleaning.  The people are an elderly couple who love to talk about their experiences teaching.  Bill Walls was an outdoor science teacher.  He was telling me a story the other day of when he worked at a very strict school whose principal was the kind who felt children should be learning at their desks with their books before them which is very contrary to Bill’s way of teaching.  There wasn’t much of a school yard, but right on the other side of the school property line was a corn field.  Bill asked the farmer there if he could use the corn field for his class to which the farmer gladly agreed.  So out to the field they went.  According to the directions above, each student got down on the ground to start studying their little plots.  The principal, who needed to speak with Bill, came into the empty class room.  Bill described the principal wearing long sleeves, a tie, and a twitch usually in one eye.  Bill said that when he saw that the students weren’t in the class, BOTH eyes started twitching.  Out the open back door went the principal and found Bill standing at the edge of the corn field.  “Mr. Walls, WHERE are your students!?”  Bill, looked around wonderingly and replied, “Well, they WERE here just a minute ago”.  “Well, where are they now?  These are your students, your responsibility!!!  Where are they?”  his voice now beginning to crescendo.  Bill was quite enjoying himself.  “Hmm.  Maybe the wind blew them away.”  “MR. WALLS!  This is not funny….”  Just then, the bell rang for the students clean up and head to their next class and from the seemingly empty corn field popped all the students heads all at once!  The principal grumbled, “I should have known!”  and walked away. 

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