One Child Policy Homeschool

May 5, 2009 - Another Walk at the River

Highlights from our Sunday afternoon at the river.

We found a perfect shrimp exoskeleton on a rock.

We love our Chaco sandals! You can wade right into the water with them but still have firm footing. When you get out of the water, the straps dry quickly.

An eel was nosing around the bank. I almost stepped on it! (If you click on the photo, you'll go to Flickr where the photo has some explanatory notes to help you see it better.)

And a flock of ducks that gave Sprite a lot of amusement, chasing and catching.

Sprite did some journaling in her nature notebook when we returned home. It's so good to be back into nature study again. The river is such a fun place to explore!

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April 5, 2009 - The Fish Head Rock

Do you see it? When I photographed it, it was merely a rock with algae and some barnacles. But after I uploaded it, I was amazed to see a fish's head!

There's a word for seeing images inside something else --pareidolia.
If you're interested, browse the Pareidolia Flickr group where you can see other pics like this. Sometimes I can't see what I'm supposed to see, but Sprite always can! She's got an eye for pareidolia. She's constantly seeing faces or animals in inanimate objects. It's part of her visual-spatial gifting.

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April 2, 2009 - Nature Study at the River

We now live near a river, walking distance in fact. And what a great opportunity it is for nature study. I can hardly call this school. It's just refreshing and enjoyable. Besides enjoying the outdoors ourselves, I really enjoy seeing others doing so -- fishing or just playing in the mud.

Here's the bridge over the bend of the river closest to our home.

With a view like this, you can forget you're in a city for a short while.

The bridge is right ahead of Sprite in this shot.

We were smart enough to bring along a bucket, a net, and a butterfly net. Here Sprite is catching the tiniest of fish.

You can see people dotting the banks. It's not totally isolated, but for China, it's about as "alone" as you can get.

Not nature, but doesn't this boat remind you of The Story of Ping? The fisherman had crabs in the net bags hanging from the side of the boat.

I was so pleased to identify Queen Anne's Lace for Sprite and tell her how I used to use the tiny bouquets for my Barbie dolls.

The tadpoles were huge and were sprouting tiny legs.

We identified celery growing in a small patch. (Chinese celery is skinnier than what I always bought in America. I've seen the"fat" kind here too, but the skinny type seems to have a stronger flavor so I prefer it now.)

We got out of the habit of nature walks and nature study for many months. I missed it, but was not at all motivated during the winter months to really do anything about it. With the warmer temperatures of spring, I am thrilled to find such a wonderful gem of an area within walking distance of our home. There is still much of the river bed to explore.

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February 19, 2009 - The First Tadpoles of the Year

We found these on February 14 -- the first tadpoles of the year.

Sprite was with her two best friends. The day was wonderfully warm, so they shed their shoes on the bank of the lake and waded in.

This was my first time seeing this lake, so I'm not sure what it looked like before. I was surprised to hear people calling it a lake at all. It was so small and shallow. But obviously it has shrunk over the years to its present condition. The construction equipment in the background makes me suspicious as well. I don't know what this area will be in the future. I fear that more of the natural beauty of this park will be destroyed.

Sprite also caught freshwater jellyfish with a net. They were fascinating, tiny, white jellyfish! This park is a long yan (longan) park or orchard, with hundreds of these gorgeous, evergreen trees.

The scientific name is Dimocarpus longans Lour; the Chinese name is é¾çœ¼ long yan (longan in English). Can you see the double bike below this amazing tree? We had so much fun riding those along the paved trails.

I am so thrilled that I've found a spot for nature study in our city. It's a long bus ride and a dusty walk to the park, but it's worth it!

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September 19, 2008 - Ants Nature Study

We've finally gotten back into the swing of nature walks. This week our focus was inspired by Sprite's current read-- Christian Liberty Press's Nature Reader. The material on ants is very engaging and offers enough mystery that you want to go outdoors and actually see what you're reading. So we did. Ants. How easy can it get? Ants are truly everywhere! And they are fascinating!

As the book suggested, we made a makeshift ant farm with a small glass jar. I'd never done that, and didn't think it would work. But our jar is small enough that we can see the ants building tunnels and carrying food down them. It's quite interesting. We keep it covered with black paper when we're not studying the ants.