Nature Center

Today we met my friend and her kids at the local nature center. Though my boys enjoy going, they usually complain because they are not allowed to do things like climb the trees. This time there was no complaining by anyone. They had a great time "adventuring" with their friends - catching lizards (all the lizards stayed there), finding spiders and their webs in the trees, and trying to spot fish in the big lake and little creeks. I enjoyed hanging out with my friend and talking about things like Latin, art, and field trips. :) 

We did not take any pictures this time, and there were very, very few birds to spot. We did find a snowy egret just before we left. Another highlight was when one of the nature center volunteers brought out some just-hatched water turtles, and let us follow her when she released them. The kids kept a close watch for approaching fish to make sure the turtles at least survived their first dip in the water. Overall, it was a very stress-free 2 1/2 hours spent at the nature center.


When we got home, the boys made a list of everything they saw. There were very many spiders, a couple birds, some lizards, and quite a few water turtles. They also made note of the bugs they saw inside the small nature center building - a tarantula, a millipede, walking sticks, a black widow and a brown widow. Then they drew a picture for their nature section of their notebooks, and wrote a sentence about the trip.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Last night the boys were sitting on the porch and I was walking past the open door. We all heard a bird call that was very different from what we are used to (most of what we hear are the crows and occasionally the sparrows or pigeons). We all went out and stood under our tree and saw a bird we'd never seen before. I got a picture of its back and tail (not very good) and I noticed that the tail was gray and black striped. The bird suddenly flew from our tree to one across the street and I swore it looked like a small hawk, but thought there was no way it was one as those usually stay in the park a mile or so away.

I went in and found the local bird guide and sure enough, we had a Sharp-shinned Hawk in our tree. We were all so excited. After it flew away (first it flew to a telephone pole and then flew overhead a little bit before going too far for us to see), we came inside, listened to the call on-line and found some more pictures. The boys thought it was the coolest thing.

What is a Bird?

We are continuing to read a few sections of What is a Bird? each day. Before the boys woke today, I went on-line and found some free coloring pages of birds, copied them into Publisher, and then added text lines underneath. All three picked the bird they liked, and worked on coloring them while I read. After I was done, each boy took turns telling something that makes a bird a bird. Then, after they were done coloring, they wrote the four main attributes of a bird on the lines under their picture. For my oldest and middle sons, it was their copywork for the day - they told me the attributes, I wrote them on a separate piece of paper, then they copied the words onto their papers.

 

This is my three year old's bird picture. We looked up his bird in the Audubon First Field Guide of Birds and he did a very good job getting his colors close to the actual coloring of the bird. (I wrote for him. ;) )

 

My middle son's picture. He was very proud of his coloring of the cardinal and his printing.

 

And my oldest son's picture. (He *loves* cursive writing and makes sure I put all his copywork in cursive for him; he not as fond of "translating" printing into cursive even though he can do it.) 

Tonight we will continue reading about Peter Rabbit's bird friends from the Burgess Bird Book. I think next week we will take a field trip to our local nature center and see what we can find there.

Today was a nice day

Today was one of those days, that although not perfect, was just very nice. Overall, things went well. Overall, people were kind and cooperative. We were able to get our core subjects done in the morning, did some reading after lunch (I read to them and they read to me), and then spent 2 1/2 hours at the park with our friends. My oldest has 7 more pages to read in his current Hooked on Phonics chapter book (he is 7 pages from being done with the Red level - we started in the Orange level in April and he has made HUGE improvements) and then he'll move on to the Green level. I think, even though he fights reading, he's feeling pretty proud of himself.

I've also decided to do a semi-informal unit on birds. We have been reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children, which the boys are enjoying (especially my oldest), and from that we have begun flipping through a bird field guide and looking them up on-line as we read about different birds in the book. So, I picked up Take a Backyard Bird Walk and pulled What is a Bird? off the bookshelf in the living room to read. Though I don't want to structure our Nature Walks (when we finally get around to starting them), the boys have already expressed an interest in making sure we take a bird guide with us when we go to the park, so I think I'll make sure I pack it on our walks. :) 

We also just started reading Our Island Story. My oldest is loving it even though we are only a couple sections into it. We are using History Odyssey Middle Ages this year (we were "supposed" to get to it last year and never did), but I decided to start Our Island Story at the beginning instead of somewhere in the middle. I want to make sure we study the history of the world rather than focus on just one area (mostly, I want to avoid as much as possible being Euro-centric), I also know that British (and Western) history is very important to understand the origins of our own country. So, mixing History Odyssey with Our Island Story might do what I want - give us breadth and also some depth. We'll see ... we have to actually read the stories first. ;)

Copywork meets Nature Study

When we decided to get more structured back in the spring, my oldest son started doing copywork or dictation every day. We tended to alternate, with the dictation coming from his spelling program All About Spelling. This summer my middle son started doing very simple dictation and copywork. After talking with the boys, we decided to drop the dictation for now and just stick with copywork (they prefer copywork, so I figure that some days I'll focus on writing elements from Writing With Ease and some days I'll just write out a sentence from their spelling program so they are practicing that day's spelling concepts without it having to be dictation). Here is what my oldest son did yesterday.

 

We have been reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children; my oldest son especially has been enjoying the stories. For the past couple weeks we have been working on abbreviations in writing - months of the year, days of the week, and common abbreviations like Mrs., Mr., Dr., and the such. So yesterday I had him write a sentence about Jenny (Mrs.) Wren and Mr. Wren. His picture is what really got me though. His writing is consistently neat and nice. He takes great pride in it. But he has never been huge on artwork. He'll illustrate most of his copywork and dictation sentences. And sometimes he really gets into it, but yesterday he really put a lot of time and attention into his drawing. He was so proud of his work and so am I. 

 

We keep writing, science (which is sorely lacking), history (lacking as well), and nature study/observations (this is the first) in a 3-ring binder. The boys really enjoy looking back over their work to see how much they have improved and matured in their work.