Posted in Nature Study
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For anyone studying hurricanes this season, here is a very useful website that includes tracking maps you can print out and use.
Depending on which direction you go, the study of hurricanes can cover many subject areas in your portfolios. It doesn't have to be through a purchased unit study either. The internet and your local library are great resources to find the following information.
Geography - Tracking maps: find out in what parts of the world hurricanes form
History - Study the impact of some major hurricanes from the past and how areas recovered
Safety Ed - What people should do in the event a hurricane is headed their way; What the flags for tropical storms and hurricanes look like.
Civics - Study ways people volunteer in a hurricane aftermath. Perhaps find one volunteer or a group of volunteers and find out what they do in a day.
Reading - Check the daily paper for stories on the current hurricanes.
Don't feel like you have the time to do the research? Go to the library, find books on hurricanes and bring them home. Give your child a blank notebook with the above questions and let him go to it. You might need to set a time limit - tell him this needs to be done by the end of the week. You might be surprised at what he will produce.
I'm sure there are more subjects to be covered, please post them in my comments because I would love to hear your ideas.
NOTE: All of the above subjects were chosen based on Pennsylvania homeschool law. |
Posted in Nature Study
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 We are turning into a regular farm here. Have I mentioned that we live on a fifth of an acre in town? Yes, one fifth of an acre.
The borough says that we can have any type of animal here but pigs. So now we have three chickens. I felt it would be a good experience for the kids to watch them grow and take care of them. They can keep track of them in their nature journals. We are going to use Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study to guide us in this little adventure. Here are a couple of pictures.... This used to be a happy little playhouse. Is it our new barn?  The chicks seem happy here!  A closer look.  A farmer boy in the making.  |
Posted in Nature Study
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We are studying fish. This winter, we got an aquarium and made some entries in our Nature Notebooks on our new goldfish. The water turned murky almost as soon as we started the aquarium. We tried putting snails in the tank to help clear it up. All the snails died. We recently purchased a pleco, algae eater, to add to the tank. The water was still murky. Last night I finally took a sample of the water from the aquarium to the pet store. They checked it and told us we are feeding the fish too much. They said three feedings a day is a little excessive. Doing a web search yesterday also taught us that goldfish are actually carp and carp like to eat snails. While at the pet store, we noticed that none of the goldfish tanks had snails in them. Hmmm. |