Despite the icky hot weather, we did manage to spend some time doing nature study this week. Although we're not "officially" doing school all summer, I am going to try to keep up with nature study because there is just so much going on in the garden in the summer! Part of our unofficial nature study this week was admiring our newly blooming daylillies.
They've been looking ready to bust for a couple of weeks, but finally began blooming on Tuesday! They're as tall as Kathryn! I told her I wanted a picture of her with the daylillies, and I'm pretty sure she purposely chose this shirt to match them! We brought one lily inside to study it up close with a magnifying glass, and Kathryn found a "bonus prize" of a tiny pinkish spider that she followed around on the table for a few minutes before it met an untimely demise. (Sorry, but when critters come IN my house, it's no holds barred.)Outdoor Hour Challenge #17 was to collect and study leaves. Our yard isn't exactly a forest, but we do have quite a few trees - most of them planted by us in the three years we've lived here. We gathered a dogwood leaf, which did give us an opportunity to check back on the tree we chose for our year-long tree study; sometime soon we need to spend more time on a cooler day paying even closer attention to it for the summer part of our tree study. We also collected leaves from one of our maple trees, a redbud tree, a peach tree, our ornamental cherry tree, and a leaf from one of our apples trees. Once inside, we read a bit about leaves in our Handbook of Nature Study, and found quite a great deal of information on apple trees and how an apple is formed. We have only two apples growing on our yellow-apple tree (and none on our green-apple tree) but we only planted them last year, so they will likely need a few more years to start producing more than a few apples. Finding all that information about them makes me want to pay much closer attention to them next year, just before they begin to flower! How lovely it would be to complete a few months of apple-tree nature study with the grand finale of an apple pie! {smile}
We pressed our leaves overnight, and then I helped Kathryn do a rubbing with a crayon, and she filled in the details with a colored pencil. This was something that Harmony Art Mom (Barb) says one of her boys did, and we liked the idea!
Kathryn wants to put the actual leaves in her nature journal, too, so we're pressing them a few more days to make them easier to add; that peach leaf was still really curvy and did not want to lay flat! As usual, Lacy wanted to help. I am fully convinced that our dog is benefiting from homeschooling, too. I think she can spell and read. She just can't hold a pencil or talk, so I suppose I can't test her to see what grade level she'd be. {hee hee} She seriously does take a real interest in what we're doing at the table, and would probably sit in a chair if I let her. When Lacy isn't studying, sleeping, or gnawing on her nylabone, she's running - really, really fast!
I hope you're enjoying nature, even if it's too hot to spend much time outdoors. Barb had some great hints this week about doing nature study in hot weather. I recommend reading it if you live in a hot climate like I do. I just can't say enough to thank her for coming up with these studies. They're fun, manageable, and one less thing I have to plan. It's inspiration for me to keep up with nature study because I can do these so easily! Barb has had a few discouraging things happening lately, so please stop by her blog and leave a word of encouragement if you have enjoyed participating in or just reading about these lovely little nature challenges!
