• May. 11, 2007
It's Unanimous!
The people have spoken and it's unanimous - the terra cotta yarn it is!! I really appreciate the opinions, I tend to worry over choices like this when I'm making a gift. And I should have mentioned, the yarn for that sock-in-progress is Opal, which I got from The Loopy Ewe, of course.
I thought I'd show a bit of the nature journaling we've been doing - this is a big part of how we do science for school in the younger grades. Whether you homeschool or not, I think this is a great way to get kids to observe and learn about the world around them, which they are usually very curious about. I also encourage the boys to take a small journal with them on any trips we takes, especially if I know we'll be doing some hiking. Here's an example of journal pages my second grader has done recently: (he's really into birds right now)
We might do a page from something we see outside, looking up information to learn more about it. We also might read a book about something nature related and journal from it, or illustrate a page much like a field guide. The hardest thing about the whole process is convincing the kids that it's ok if their drawings don't look like an artist did them. It's really not about displaying artistic talent, although they've all seen that they get better with practice. Somedays we might just make observations about the weather and how the sky looks. Here's another example:
While the 2nd grader was working on this, I read to him from a book about dandelions, and I learned a few things myself! The older boys really enjoy looking back at nature journals they've done. Now that they've moved on to a more structured, textbook approach for science, I tend to forget to have them work on this - need to do more of that.
Here's a few books I like that have helped us along with this. Some good field journals are great to have on hand - even if we didn't do nature journaling, seems like we're always looking things up in them. I also like:
"Keeping a Nature Journal - discover a whole new way of seeing the world around you" by Clare Walker Leslie & Charles E Roth (this is my fav)
"Handbook of Nature Study" by Anna Bradford Comstock This is a reprint of an older book but has good basic info on a wide range of topics (weeds, animals, bugs, birds, etc)
"Wild Days - creating discovery journals" by Karen Rackliffe
"A Life in Hand - creating the illuminated journal" by Hannah Hinchman
Another good one, if you have kids that like to find toads, butterflies, ants, etc is "Pets in a Jar- collecting and caring for small wild animals" by Seymour Simon. (The idea here is to keep them for a short period of time for observation and then let them go)
Give nature journaling a try!! It's a really fun family activity to take with you to a park or just your backyard.
Speaking of nature, we discovered this fellow in the fireplace right after supper:
See him down there in the corner? Yep, it's a bat. Now, we are not anti-bat around here. The more mosquito-eating bats the better, I say. We love watching them swoop around ....outside!! Outside is the key here, I really don't want one in my fireplace, thankyouverymcuh. There's a glass panel there or he's have been flying around the living room. When farmer-husband came home at midnight, the little guy was still there so he obviously couldn't find his way out. We took the glass panel off and put a big canvas butterfly-type net right next to him, and nudged him into it with a handy wooden sock blocker. (I'll bet that's a new use for one of those) We took him outside and off he flew. Go mosquito-eater, go! (just stay out of the fireplace, ok?)
Comments
• May. 12, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by Danielle
I'm not fond of bats in the house either, and I'll share a funny story with you real quick: When I was about 16 or so we lived next to a huge old house that had bats that lived in it, and on it because of the tons of ivy that grew on it. This bat got into our house and terrorized my poor dad for many nights, by swooping around in the living room. He didn't know what was whooshing around his head though, and he thought he was losing it. Then a few nights later, I was going upstairs. At the top of the stairs there was a window with long curtains at it, and low and behold that bat was in the folds of that curtain. I spied it, and thought it was a bird. It flew out, and my younger brother and I realized it was a bat. We started screaming for my parents, my dad ran upstairs in his underwear with a small baseball bat and chased that bat around and hit it. All the blinds were open upstairs, we thought the neighbors must think we were crazy or something. When we located the bat, his head was pounded right smack into his little body! That was a weird night! At least your little bat fared a lot better than the one that was unfortunate enough to end up at our house LOL!
The colors you've chosen for your log cabin baby blanket will be gorgeous, terra cotta for sure!!
• May. 12, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
I see lots of wonderful science journal pages. You do have some very artistic young people! I bet they were pretty excited about your little bat visitor...birds eye view and all :)
happy knitting :)
hakucho
• May. 13, 2007
I've got to admit...
Posted by LLA
as crazy as it sounds, I love bats. Really love 'em.
But I'm in total agreement with you - love 'em *when they are OUTSIDE where they belong!*
Thanks for the gentle catch-n-release of the little beastie!
• Aug. 9, 2007
nature journals
Posted by homejewel
Thanks so much for listing the books on nature journals. I have the journals, but was lacking motivation. I think the books you mentioned may just do the trick. Now's a great time to start while the weather is still gorgeous! I found your blog via Randi's homeschool week. Great blog!
