Woolly Bear Update...

After many searches for woolly bears around our neighborhood, Madeline found one in our driveway.  Good thing she found it before I backed the car over it!  So, now we have one woolly bear caterpillar hanging out in a cozy container to wait for spring.  Then, hopefully, the girls will be able to witness its transformation into an Isabella tiger moth.

This Week's Nature Study

I really did plan to follow the Outdoor Hour Challenges for our nature study, however it seems that the girls have other ideas.  This week they have been fascinated with all of the ladybugs (ladybird beetles) that they have found outside, as well as inside, our house.  So, I have decided that our nature study this week will be on ladybird beetles.  We will gather some information from Anna Botsford Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, pages 364-366, and maybe some other sources, and we will go out in search of ladybird beetles. Although it should be rather easy to find them (unlike those woolly bears that we have yet to find).   I do think, however, that we will include the assignment from Outdoor Hour Challenge #2: Using Your Words while we do this.  I am looking forward to it!

Nature Study

I have decided to add a weekly nature study to our homeschool curriculum. The girls really enjoy exploring outside and finding treasure, and I wanted to find a way to let them develop that. I found information on nature studies based on the book "Handbook of Nature Study" by Anna Botsford Comstock. 

I was a bit concerned about using the book since its copyright is 1939, but as I read it, I found that it to provide a great background for nature studies. I also found a website that provides weekly challenges based on the book and only take 20 minutes or so. It is located here .

So, I intended to just start with the first five challenges, as the website suggests, and then move to whatever the current challenge was. However, as I read the book I came across information on the woolly bear caterpillar, which becomes the Isabella tiger moth in the spring. Well, I know the woolly bear caterpillars are around now, and how could we pass up exploring something that has Isabella in its name. So, today we set off to find some woolly bear caterpillars. Well, we did not find any (yet), but we did find some great spider webs.

This one was on our swings. It was interesting because it had one part that was quite thick.

This one was on the corner of our monkey bars. It was difficult to get a good picture of it, though.

Isabella was very excited to start drawing in her journal. She drew both of the spider webs as well as a squirrel and butterfly that she saw while we were outside. She even "wrote"about them.
After drawing and writing a bit, we thought we would go check the woods behind out home for woolly bears. We did not find any, but the girls did build some homes for some fairies while we were out there using sticks, nuts, bark, flowers, a feather and leaves that they found. Isabella used an old log as the base of hers.
Madeline included "beds" for eight fairies in hers.
And she made a roof and a slide from bark.
While they were collecting items for building the homes, Madeline found this garden snail. We brought it back, added drawings of it to our journals, and learned lots about snails.

Did you know garden snails actually have mouths with teeth and a tongue? Or that the ate apples? Or that those long "antennae" actually have eyes on them? Or that they fold up and go back into their shells head-first?

There is just so much to learn!