Osprey Nest

In April of this year the residents of Maurice River, NJ got new neighbors.  A pair of Ospreys have made their nest and a few weeks ago their babies hatched!

Ospreys are birds of prey who migrate to wetland areas in the northeastern United States in the spring. They dine on fish and are fun to watch as they dive feet first into shallow water then take their catch to  a nearby perch to eat.  They build their nests on tall (usually dead) trees and special nesting platforms built especially for them.  Their numbers were declining due to pesticide contamination of waterways however thanks to new pesticide regulations and habitat protection they are making a comeback!

Maurice River is one of our neighboring towns and we can see Osprey flying overhead and fishing while on nature walks or even just driving to the shore.  The kids and I have really enjoyed watching this nest camera placed in a nest in Maurice River, NJ.  We figure we have another 3 weeks or so before the babies are ready to leave the nest.

Link: Osprey Camera

Wordless Wednesday - Nature Walking

The weather has been beautiful lately and we have taken full advantage of it.  Here are some pictures of our latest nature walk.

Little M writing in his Nature Journal

Ms. Q and friend writing in their Nature Journals

Winter Tree and Snow

Our selected tree, picture taken by Q

Last week we decided to combine our Outdoor Hour Challenges and have two nature studies in one week.  We neglected to do our nature study the previous week so it all worked out.  We began a winter tree study and a winter weather study.

Ms. Q won rock paper scissors and was the official tree picker.  The only stipulation was that the tree had to be inside the backyard fence.  She chose the tall maple tree that sits to the side of the back door.  It was an interesting choice given that this tree is the one that holds our clothesline, had a birdhouse on it that Ms. Q made, and provides much of the shade we use when playing outside in the summer.  What was interesting is that even though this tree provides all the above uses, Ms. Q and I noted that we really never look at it.  It's just always there.  So this study allowed us the opportunity to really study something that we always look at but rarely ever see. 

For winter weather we studied snow.  The east coast has had more than it's fair share of snow this year.  In New Jersey we received more snow in the first month of this winter than we did in the entire three months of winter last year!  This is of course fun for the kids but I find as I grow older that snow has lost some of it's funness. Now that Little M is big enough to go outside with Ms. Q I don't usually go play in the snow.  Snow has become dangerous roads, closed offices, and higher utility bills.  It means cancelled activities and the possibility of a power outage.  But with a closer look at the snow this week some of that wonder has come back.  We measured the snow fall from the morning and discovered that 5 inches had fallen already that morning.  We filled a measuring cup with snow and waited for it to melt.  Each of us wagered a guess at how much water would be in the cup when the snow melted and we were all surprised.  More than one cup of snow melted down to about 1/2c. of water. Who would have thought?  This is one of the joys of homeschooling - learning together as a family.

5 inches of snow in 2 hours

More than 1 cup of snow

Melted to about 1/2 cup of water

Outdoor Challenge #4 & #5

I just realized that I never published our expereince with challenge #4. Although I wrote it last week I seemed to have saved it in draft format. So I added this week's #5 to it.

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Challenge #4

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The Outdoor Hour Challenge this week was to walk outdoors and observe. The challenge was to notice what your child pays attention to and develop a focus area. The next challenges will involve discussing and researching the chosen focus area.

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I found this passage in the recommended Handbook of Nature Study reading very inspiring:

"The child should never be required to learn the name of anything in the nature-study work; but the name should be used so often and so naturally in his presence that he will learn it without being conscious of the process."

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Why this passage strikes me so, I am not sure. I know very few scientific names for things. In fact, when I was required to learn the scientific names for things in school I am pretty sure I purposely ignored the teacher because of the irrelevance of this knowledge to life. The idea behind this statement is what really captured me. We are new to nature study but have always been nature observers and enjoyers. I have no idea how to "teach" about nature. But this statement is reassuring in that I really don't need to teach anything, just set a good example.

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We really enjoyed the park we went to this week. It was new one for us, close enough to get to quickly and just enough nature for observing. It is a city park, not a preserve, but beautiful just the same. After discussing all the plants and animals we saw today, Ms. Q decided that her focus area will be butterflies!

Challenge #5
For this challenge we brought a friend and spent most of the day hiking through the pinelands.
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We tried to keep focused on looking for butterflies but there didn't seem to be very many. According to an article I read in the local newspaper, our over abundance of rain this summer has dramatically decreased the number of butterflies in our area. It did however increase the number of mushroom varieties we saw on our hike. We saw over 20 different kinds! The different colors, shapes, and sizes had the girls running with the camera from one spot to another.
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The highlight of our hike was this little guy (or gal):

The girls thought it was so cool how (s)he covered up with the leaves in order not to be seen. This led to an interesting conversation about camouflage in nature and how animals use it for protection from predators.
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Other highlights included a set of deer tracks that Ms. Q identified and attempted to follow, a salamander climbing on a tree trunk, and an observation deck overlooking a fast moving stream.
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Here are some pictures from our day:

Outdoor Challenge #3

Outdoor Challenge #3 was a great success! It has been raining off and on for weeks and Little M is getting over being sick, so we stuck to our own backyard again this week.

Ms. Q is already used to drawing in her nature journal and she was excited to draw the story of our nature walk. She noticed a small hole in the ground that ants were walking around but not going in. She hypothesized that this was not an ant hole because it was too large. I asked her how deep did she think the hole was. She did not know but she thought it must be pretty deep because it was so big. I took a long blade of grass and stuck it into the hole. It wasn't very deep but very loud buzzing sound followed and a large dark insect stuck its head out of the hole!!! We yelled and ran away, but did come back again to finish our exploring.

Ms. Q thinks that the insect could have been a cicada nymph. She knows more about insects than I do, so I believe her. Evidently cicada nymphs grow underground and then come out and climb trees to shed their skin before becoming mature adults. She loves collecting these skins every year.

Her journal entry was great. She wrote the story and drew some great pictures to go along with it. I tried to remind her to use descriptive words like we did last week to describe what she experienced and she did pretty well with using them in her narrative. So far so good. We are really excited to get to next week's challenge.

Outdoor Challenge #2

Our challenge for this week was to spend some time learning about the sounds of nature. We also learned about the perils of nature today too. Ms. Chatterbox had a bit of a rough time staying quiet during our walk, mostly because she kept telling me about the sounds she was hearing! "Did you hear that?" and "What kind of bird was that you think?" We agreed to take a break from not talking so she could excitedly describe the things she saw. She did really well with describing her experiences. She heard chirping, dripping, rustling, buzzing; she saw red ants, big birds, fast dragonfly, wet spiderweb; and she felt cold wet rain, smooth wet grass.

She also felt sharp stinging pain when she was stung by a yellow jacket! Thankfully this happened near the end of our walk around the backyard. After she removed the ice from her arm she drew this picture in her nature journal.

Nature Walk Thursday

Today was the first day of Nature Walk Thursday. To recap, our summer plans include spending every even Thursday involved in nature activities. How cool, and timely also, that I stumbled upon The Outdoor Hour. Barb provides free online plans and weekly challenges that connect to The Handbook of Nature Study. I really had no idea or plan about what we were actually going to do on Nature Walk Thursday. I thought Ms. Q and I could just sorta stumble along and figure it out along the way like we usually do. Well, something better just came up! We started with the first challenge today. It was a blast!

We went to Giampeitro Park near our house. This is a favorite spot for playing on the playground so it took a little while for Ms. Q to move beyond the man-made scenery and really see what else their was. We planned for 30 minutes nature walking followed by 15-30 minutes playing, depending on Little M's mood because it would be nearing the time of his morning nap.

The ground was so soggy from the weeks and weeks of rain we have received lately that our shoes were totally wet. We really got into it though and Ms. Q was sad when the timer went off for us to stop. She was consoled however, by the fact that it was now time to go to the playground and some other children had arrived to play while we were walking.

Ms. Q was really interested in identifying the flower she picked from a bush growing near the lake and also in a strange little red mushroom she found. Neither one of us had seen a red mushroom before but we had never really looked for one either. She took a lot of pictures and pasted them into the nature journal she made two weeks ago along with her own drawings of her "specimens" and a little narrative of our "adventure walk" as she called it. M really liked feeling the barks of various trees. I asked him how the bark felt and if different tree bark felt different from others. He's thirteen months old, so he really didn't give me much of a response but it fun nonetheless.

We saw a momma goose with some babies near the lake and Ms. Q was sure to tell me that they were not goose babies but called chicks. I was surprised that she was more interested in the plants she found growing than in the wildlife. I pointed out some turtles on a log, a crane fishing, and the call of a bullfrog in the bushes but she dismissed these things and went zooming over to some flowers growing that she had never seen before. As soon as we returned home she told Fred all about our walk and showed him the things she had collected. She said she can't wait until our next walk and was begging me to give her the next outdoor hour challenge.

Here are some pictures from our nature study.