Outdoor Hour Challenge Spring Series #7 Mammal Study-Cats
“The kittens meantime train themselves to agility and dexterity, by playing rough and tumble with each other, and by chasing every small moving object, even to their own tails….The cat loves warmth and finds her place beneath the stove or at the hearthside. She likes some people, and dislikes others, for no reason we can detect.”Inside Preparation Work:
Handbook of Nature Study, page 264
Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 260-266. Highlight points you would like to share with your children or read to them from the book.
Outdoor Hour Time:
“This lesson may be used in primary grades by asking a few questions at a time and allowing the children to make their observations on their own kittens at home…”Use the suggested observation questions from Lesson 64 to help your child study a cat up close. Perhaps use Observation #5-8 as an investigation of your very own cat. Paws, eyes, teeth, and whiskers are all easy subjects to focus on for now. You can always come back and use the other suggestions at another time.
Handbook of Nature Study, page 265
If you have an outdoor cat, spend some time observing her in her daily activities. Remember to take your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time and let your children explore to see if they can see any other mammals in the neighborhood. Make sure to look for paw prints in the mud or dirt. If you find some tracks, take a few minutes to carefully observe some of the details.
Follow-Up Activity:
After your observations and outdoor time, have your child tell you some of the things he remembers about the nature study. Did you observe a cat up close? Offer some time for a journal entry using the notebook page provided with the Spring Series ebook, a blank notebook page from my sidebar (there is a mammal page in this set), or a blank nature journal of your own.
Draw the parts of the cat that you observed: paws, claws, teeth, eyes, whiskers, or anything else your child found interesting. You may need to help your children label their entries.
It might be interesting to follow up your cat study with a dog study and compare the two mammals.
If you found paw prints in the mud or dirt, you might enjoy reading this website that compares various feline and canine prints. http://www.bear-tracker.com/caninevsfeline.html
More Information about Mammals and Cats
If you are interested in learning more about mammals, here is a link that you might enjoy: Mammals on Yahoo! Kids
If you would like a complete lapbook set on Mammals from Hearts and Trees, here is the link:
Hearts and Trees Mammal Lapbook Kit
Here is a link to a free Cat Lapbook and Unit Study: Cats on Homeschool Share
Please make sure to come back and post your link on Mr. Linky after completing this challenge and writing your blog entry. I always love to come by and see what you are up to!
If you would like all the Spring Series Challenges in one place, I have an ebook gathered for you to purchase for your convenience. The ebook also contains art and music appreciation plans for the spring months as well as custom notebooking pages for each of the challenges. Please see this entry for more details:
Spring Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
