Winter Nature Study...

The boys were off on an adventure in the pasture.

So Miss LouLou asked to do nature study.

We took off on a walk around the yard...exploring

One of the first things we noticed was...
Not just one...

Not two...

Not three...four...or...five

But...SIX...birds nests...

We found one...

in the oak tree at the road

in the hedges near the woods

in the oak tree in the yard

in the blackberry bush along the fence

in the bluebird house

in the magnolia tree

So we collected a couple that we could reach and examined how they were made.

We saw...

pieces of carpet from the carpet in the garden

pine straw

hay

pieces of blue tarp pulled from the fraying edge

and twigs.

We drew a bird's nest in our nature notebooks and taped some of their construction materials beside the picture...

And this Tiny Miss was just along for the ride...

Nature Study With The Girls...

Miss LouLou has suddenly began asking almost everyday if we can go on a nature walk.

Her enthusiasm excites me:-)

We created a nature notebook for her awhile back.

Now we are slowly beginning to add sketches from our nature time together.

So far we haven't followed any lessons.  We've just walked outside until we find something of interest.

Like a cricket

or Plantain

Here we are collecting leaves in the woods.

Miss LouLou was very excited to see the surprise when she rubbed her crayon over her page.

We were blowing bubbles today and a ladybug landed on my hand.  That led to a story about ladybugs and a drawing in our nature notebooks.

This afternoon while baby sisters were napping she asked to go one a nature walk again.

 That walk ended with finding the seeds from the goldenrod and marigold plants left in the yard.

I showed her how to save the seeds from the marigolds and told her we could plant them in the spring.

Here Comes A Chick...

I was looking through some pictures back form the summer when I realized I hadn't posted this...

We had a mama hen who was sitting on about eight eggs.

When the first few hatched she was anxious to get off of the nest...

So she left a few eggs.  We listened and heard some peeping and a chipping sound.

There was another chick who was trying to hatch.

We were able to hold the egg and watch one of God's little miracles...

Hello, Baby Chick...

Exploring for Bugs...

The summer was hot.  So one day after we had been inside for awhile, I sent the littles out with the bug bucket

the magnifying glasses and a book about bugs.  Explore the garden...See what you can find...that was

the instruction. I soon followed with the camera.  We found some great insects to draw in our nature notebooks.

I even captured a  couple of insects in pictures...

Boo looking at the okra stalk with his magnifying glass...

eggs on a leaf...

Boo searching the grass for bugs...

gulf fritillary on the zinnias...

Bo checking under the carpet...

See the dragonfly...

Next we came inside and...

examined the bugs

looked them up in the field guides

drew them in our nature notebooks

Finished Products...

Orange-Tipped Oakworm

A couple of days ago Boo rushed in and asked me to come out and see what he had found.  It was a caterpillar that looked like it might sting so we collected it and put it into a jar so that we could examine it more closely.  A few minutes later LouLou rushed in and said, "Come see what I found."  I went out and it was the same type of caterpillar.


So we discovered that this was an Orange-Tipped Oakworm.  We checked the oak tree in the yard and sure enough there were lots of caterpillars on the tree and on the ground underneath.

Here are the leaves being eaten by the caterpillars...

Bo wasn't happy...this was his tree that was being eaten.

We examined the caterpillars.  Bo noticed the suction cups on the bottom of the caterpillars legs.  They were sticking to his fingers. 

We all noticed the spines because we were afraid to touch it at first.

We drew a picture of the caterpillars in out nature journals.

 I was soo excited to have Miss LouLou participate today.  She turned four in July and she has her very own nature journal now.

Here is her very first entry...She did a fabulous job with a little guidance from mommy!

Sunflowers in our garden...

Sunflowers on a rainy day

The patch of sunflowers we planted in our garden this year are big and beautiful.  I was excited when I saw the July Newsletter this month.  One of the topics included for nature study was sunflowers.  So today the littles and I decided it was time for some more nature study.  We took a walk out into the garden to observe our sunflowers.  We used all of our senses...feel...smell...see...taste...hear.

We felt the stalks and leaves and the the boys thought they felt rough.

We smelled the flowers...they have a very slight smell...fresh...it seems

We could see the sunflowers towering above.  We measured one over 9ft tall

The boys quickly wanted to know if that's how tall Goliath was...as they pretended to be David.

thanks for taking mommy's picture Bo

and our newest little enjoyed her first nature study

We tasted sunflower seeds...yummy.

We could hear bees buzzing all around as we examined the sunflowers.  The littles counted 10 bees on our sunflowers.

We came inside and began journaling our sunflowers study.  We learned that sunflowers are composite flowers.

composite-a family of flowers with a head composed of many florets.

We examined the sunflower with a magnifying glass and saw the hundreds of tiny florets.

We completed our nature study pages and eagerly awaited our art lesson...

After lunch we used our oil pastels to draw beautiful sunflowers...

Miss LouLou used the chalk pastels...but I was very proud of her sunflower.  She usually says I can't do it right and doesn't even give it an attempt.  Today she tried her best and it turned out beautifully.

The boys used oil pastels and we followed this tutorial.

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals.  Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident;  others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the holly-hock.  -Henry Ward Beecher