More Nature Study Ebook Bundle

Now you can purchase the More Nature Study Ebook Series as a bundle!

Ebooks included
More Nature Study—Autumn 2011
More Nature Study Book 2 —Winter 2012
More Nature Study Book 3—Spring 2012
More Nature Study Book 4—Summer Sizzle (2012)




Discounted Price $29.99.

Please note that I send the links within 24 hours of purchase to the email address associated with the Paypal account.

Complete list of topics included in all four ebooks in this bundle:

• Buttercups and poppies 
• Chickadee 
• Chipmunks 
• Cottonwood 
• Daisy, aster, and black-eyed susans 
• Dogwood 
• Ferns 
• Gall dwellers 
• Goats 
• Granite 
• House sparrow 
• Hummingbirds 
• Iris 
• Leaf-Miners and leaf-rollers 
• Leaf study 
• Magnets and compass 
• Maples 
• Milkweed 
• Monarch butterfly 
• Moon 
• Mouse 
• Mullein 
• Pansies 
• Pears 
• Quartz 
• Robin 
• Sand and soil 
• Sheep 
• Snails 
• Thistles 
• Tree—Buds, catkins, blossoms. Twigs. 
• Turtles and pondweed 
• Vines-Sweet peas, dodder, hedge bindweed 
• Weather—spring, winter, fall color, summer 
• Webs 
• Yellow jackets and mud daubers

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Preparation for Winter #2 Animals

"The same thought should be applied to the animals. Most of the birds have gone south because of the cold, and also because their food is gone; the frogs, turtles, and toads are going to sleep all winter down in the mud or earth below the frost; the caterpillars are waiting in their cocoons for the warm spring sunshine; most of the other insects have laid their eggs for the next season, while a few of them have crawled into warm places to wait; the squirrels have gathered a store of nuts, and will soon be asleep in the old tree-trunks; the cats dogs, horses, and cows have grown a fresh coat of hair and fur. Nothing is forgotten; each is ready in its own best way."
Nature Study by Months

Prepare: This will be another easy week of nature study that will blend easily with last week's challenge. Take the opportunity to spend some time outdoors noticing the way that animals prepare for winter. Make this one an investigation! You might prepare with a little discussion about the various animals and birds that live in your local area. Some ideas to get you started: migrating or visiting birds, squirrels gathering nuts, insects in cocoons, changes in color of various animals as they prepare for the white of the snow time. You can also read this article: Animals in Winter.

Get Outside! Bundle up and spend fifteen minutes outdoors enjoying the December world. Look for signs of animals and think about ways they prepare for winter. You can also make bird and animal observations, noting their behavior. How are they staying warm? finding food? sheltering from the weather?

Follow Up:

• After your outdoor time allow time for a nature journal entry. Use the notebook page or the journal idea from the December Newsletter to record your observations of anything that your child finds interesting. I also have a December World Notebook Page from last year that you can download.
• Maybe this week you could use a different art medium in your journal...many of us get stuck in a rut. Offer colored pencils, thin markers, watercolors, or pastels (messy but fun). 
• You could also try offering modeling clay as an alternative to drawing the subject this week and then take a photo of the finished product to include in the nature journal. 
• Additional Link: Animals in Winter lapbook - free printable

Make sure to share your December blog entries with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival.


Scheduled Publish Date: 12/28/11




Did you read my guest post over on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers about nature study and high school age children? I describe how we use nature study as a supplement to our more formal science courses. I answer these questions and more:

"Is science meaningful in your family? Can you think of a way to spend time outdoors with your children that will enhance their appreciation of nature? Can you balance their text work with some active learning by giving them the opportunity to explore an area of nature study they enjoy?"

 Click over and read the entire entry and feel free to bookmark and share. :)

Chipmunks or Squirrels? Our Study Using the Outdoor Hour Challenge

When you spend as much time outdoors as our family does, you eventually come across squirrels and chipmunks. Squirrels are an everyday occurrence in our yard but we do not see chipmunks at all. Chipmunks sometimes find us when we are out hiking, always when you stop to eat a picnic at Yosemite. I think the Chipmunk study as part of the More Nature Study series of Outdoor Hour Challenges will be one that is on-going since we were unable this week to observe any up close.

This past summer we had an experience where we thought we had seen chipmunks but turns out they too were squirrels.



This little rodent was very curious about us as we sat on the granite rock taking a rest after a long hot hike. He was not afraid of us in the least bit, begging a bite of our granola bars. We know better than to feed wild animals but he didn't understand that people food is not good for him and insisted that he investigate our pack from the inside out.



We thought he was a chipmunk because of the stripes but when we got home and pulled up the field guide we realized he was a Golden-mantled ground squirrel. Our book says he is "medium sized" but we thought he was rather small compared to our other squirrels that we observe in our backyard, the Western gray squirrel and the Fox squirrel.



So how can we tell in the future that what we see IS a chipmunk? They have stripes on their head and our little ground squirrel does not.

Interesting facts:

• Traditional hibernator- subject of much research on hibernation.
• Eats leaves and seeds of grasses, occasionally eats nuts, roots, bulbs, and other underground plant parts.
• Lives in the coniferous forest at elevations of 5,200 to 12,500 feet.
• It is prey for hawks, jays, foxes, bobcats, and coyote.
• Has cheek pouches for carrying food.
• Digs shallow burrows (up to 100 feet) with hidden openings.
• Cleans itself by rolling in the dirt.

Since we don't have chipmunks in our neighborhood but we know we see them all the time when we are at Yosemite. Sounds like a good reason to take the drive soon!