Green Hour Challenge Assignment #3

What a wonderful Nature Study we had a this week. I am really enjoying the fact that "I" am heading out to enjoy the great outdoors with my beautiful children. And the bonus is I get to spend extra special time with my friend {{Lisa}} and her wonderful girls.

While I was reading our Green Hour#3 assignments, I ran across something that really spoke to me. I want to share what I read from Handbook of Nature Study:

"... and these (children's nature journal drawings) were universally so excellent that most people regarded them as an exhibition from the art department; and yet many of these pupils never had had lessons in drawing. They had learned to draw because they liked to make pictures of the living objects which they had studied." pg 17

"Too much have we emphasized drawing as an art; it may be an art, if the one who draws is an artist; but if he is not an artist, he still has a right to draw if it pleases him to do so. We might as well declare that a child should not speak unless he put his words into poetry, as to declare that he should not draw because his drawing are not artistic." pg 17

We were asked some optional questions in regards to Nature Studies. Here are my responses:

1. Has it changed since starting these challenges? YES. I never got around to doing this before. Always wanted to, but didn't. I really appreciate having something to guide me to accomplish this "subject" I have always wanted to do with the kids, but never got around to it.

2. Are you committed to keeping up your Green Hour time because you see the benefits stacking up in your family? YES. Last night while I was tucking Jake into bed he asked if we could go on another nature walk tomorrow. They love this time out. I love this time out with them. I see a desire steering with in my children to want to learn about God's wonderful world.

3. Have you started keeping your own nature journal or photo album of you experiences outdoors with your children? Yes. I did my first journal sketch this week. I plan on adding pictures from our walk into their nature journals and/or notebooks. And dream of all dreams, I hope to scrapbook our nature walks. If anything, this blog is a virtual scrapbook.

Now onto the happen'ins of our Nature Walk. We meet at the Clear Creek Trail, but this time it we walked the middle section of the trail. One more Clear Creek Trail meeting and we have walked the whole trail. YIPPEE! And then we will go to a new place for our nature walks. We are blessed to live in an area with lots of wonderful places to go nearby. Or we could even head out our door too. We don't have to go anywhere, we just enjoy these outings, especially with another family.

Here are a few things we heard on our walk: birds chirping, creek flowing, frogs croaking, people talking (oops, must have been mom), & the wind.

Here are some things we saw: frog, bird, 2 dogs, people, grass, tree, many different plants.

Here are some things we touched: Fuzzy leaves, hard acorns, slimy frogs, rocks, trees, wood, water, flowers, people (ok... I must let you know that this is Timmy giving this answer each time... LOL), and moss.

Holly & Timmy wanted to learn more about the tree frog. We discovered (from reading HNS pg 177), that they don't have suction cups on the ends of their toes like we all thought. In fact they secrete a substance from the little round disks at the end of their toes that allow them to cling vertically to surfaces. We never knew that.

UPDATE 3-7-08: Jake wants to learn more about his acorn he found. Ok we know it is from an oak tree. Surprise, surprise. LOL But which one... It is hard to tell. What I am learning is that we need to look a the leaves from which the acron has fallen off of. And look at the bark, etc. We will just have to go back and take a closer look to help us identify it.

UPDATE: 3-7-08: Jessica wants to learn more about cattails. She wanted know how tall a Cattail can get. The type we have in our area is called a "Common Cattail" and can grow 5-9 feet tall. She also did a fun fact: The speices of CA, TX, Mexico, and Argentina can grow to be about 18 feet high! WOW! She also went onto draw one in her sketch journal and is adding her information to her journal page.

* We read a couple books: Crinkleroot's Visit to Crinkle Cove (wonderful read aloud book) & Crinkleroot's 25 More Animals Every Child Should Know.
* I had the kids lay out their treasures on colored paper and I took a picture of them. I will add this picture to their nature journal or notebook in a few days. They had so much fun looking at each item again and arranging them in their own special way so we could capture this memory with a picture. And this is a great way to record all their treasures they brought home.
* Each child picked an item out and we placed them in a book to be pressed. We will add them to their nature journals after they are done drying. (for more information read blog comments)
* We filled out our notebooking pages and did a little journaling in our nature journals .

Below is a slide show of our Nature Walk and Journal time at home.

To read more wonderful Nature Walk Adventures, please visit Barb's Blog at The Heart of Harmony, Green Hour Challenges.

Thanks for stopping by!