The kids found many creatures this summer and fall. It is their custom to make it a home and study it until it either dies or is ready to be released. We look them up in our Handbook of Nature study. They learn about what it eats and where it likes to live and they make it a home. Some of them will sketch it and record the details of its stay in their nature journal.
This summer/fall we have entertained a katydid named Frank. A wasp named Mr. Krumm (that lived in our window until it made its way into the house and needed to be exterminated). A stink bug and a butterfly with a crinkled wing and a frog. A bee named Bumble that was captured after it stung Charlie. And the lastest, a snapping turtle named Darby. Darby is scheduled to be moved to the river after the beans are harvested.
I took a picture of Kenna's nature journal but she did not approve it for posting. A nature journal can be very intimate and private. It is the child's own work. I do not review them. I do not require that they even use them. I do not correct them. But I marvel in how wonderful they are when they do choose to use them. I provide each child with one and opportunities to write and sketch in them. I also attempt to keep my own (to which I have added nothing this year). A mother's own interest, excitement and example goes a long way in motivating her children.
Steve shot his first deer this month and would you know it, he put that thing in the back on my Honda!
The kids watched every step of the cleaning and even helped, except for Maya--she eventually went inside and drew some pictures of princesses. As for me, I'm a girl who has a hard time preparing and then eating chicken so my circle around the deer got wider and wider until I suddenly remembered some errands I needed to run and I found a safe refuge at Ace.
The girls: Maya (6 1/2), Claire (8), Madison (8), Makenna (10). These are not squirmish girls (well, except Maya's not real fond of snakes)! They spent most of their time in the creek, giving themselves mud baths, searching out fossils, exploring the woods, chopping down trees and peeling the bark to make walking sticks, and only occasionally fussing over the spiders in their tents.
Makenna.
Maddie. (How did I get these kids with such amazing blue eyes?)
What's worse than Daddy Long Legs in your tent? "Daddy" Long Legs expecting babies. (Uh, maybe finding a wolf spider under your tent carrying her egg sack on her back?)
Farm kittens.
Don't touch the pans in the fire pit. Ever.
Smores. Even breakfast deserves desert.
Exploring.
Sleeping it off.
Using Keeping a Nature Journal as our guide, we've been learning how to better keep a nature journal with our co-op group. We take an hour each week to learn sketching and labeling skills and then sneek off when we can, if even to the front yard, to work in our journals thoughout the week. These are some of our first attempts.In this 20th century, to STOP rushing around, to sit quietly on the grass, to switch off the world and come back to the earth, to allow the eye to see a willow, a bush, a cloud, a leaf . . . I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen. Frederick Franck
We practiced the range of shading we could get from our pencil and tested the crosshatching technique. This is Makenna's sample page.
Makenna's acorn study (age 9 1/2). We practiced quick drawings on still objects to get the feel of doing a quick sketch on critters that might be flittering, scampering, or crawling away. Makenna used the crosshatching and shading techniques here.
Upon completion of the hay ride, I was the only mom to exit the wagon completely covered in hay. It had been stuffed in my pockets, the hood of my sweat shirt, into my shoes and socks, up my sleeves and dumped over my head. Thanks Madison, for a hay ride like none other. Sure they look so docile and pleasant in this picture—all that proves is that they know how to avoid documentation of their tricks and larking about.
This is our view of the nest tucked in-between the beams of the pergola. You can see one of the baby’s heads poking out over the beam, just to the left of the middle miniature light.
Today, we got to witness one of the little birds fly away. While we were eating lunch, I happened to catch him waver from the nest to the porch out of the corner of my eye. We watched him flitter around a bit and rest on the railing when we tiptoed out on the porch to see what he would do next. The five of us must have been too much pressure; he waisted no time with his first flight into the yard and up to the neighbor’s roof. We all jumped up and down cheering him on as he left from there. Mama and papa robin were close at hand making all kinds of racket too. I felt like Wilber waving Charlotte’s spider-babies good bye.
Makenna yelled out, "Good bye. Come back next year."
Our neighbors, had they seen our behavior and most likely not the little bird, would have thought we were nuts.
We experimented with watercolor and we planted some onion starts (48 to be exact–who likes onions? Anyone?).
We took Radar to the park and then to the nursing home to fill the bird feeders which we do once a month with some other homeschooling families. We learned that Radar is the kind of dog that people cross rooms, tap on glass, and in general change direction to see. He even got to go inside and visit with some of the residents! Makenna made me promise we’ll take him back soon.
Today we visited with a dear friend who was kind enough to share her passion with us: digging in the dirt. So we spent the afternoon scavenging in an old field. Makenna found a number of old bones, sea shell fossils and an old jar. Madison pieced together the clues to discover that a house and family once occupied the site. She found an old door knob, several old square nails, bits of pottery, worn bricks, some milk glass and various pieces to an old plate. A pretty cool end to a busy week!
Makenna
Maddie
Charlie
MayaI took the above pictures Sunday afternoon. The roads were clear and we made it to church and lunch. The afternoon turned out to be a nice day to play in the snow and this is a heavy snow that makes good snowballs and forts. Charlie was quite pleased that you could ball this stuff up and were allowed to throw it—at other people! The kids soon figured it was warmer inside their snow forts and they had fun talking about and playing survival with Dad and what you could do to protect yourself if exposed to these elements for prolonged periods of time. It was also a time of nostalgia as I remembered the Blizzard of '78, playing in the snow and tunneling out my own forts, sitting with my chin rested on the back of the couch watching the snow storm out the picture window, digging out cars that got stuck on our street, and the big barrel of salt the city put out on the corner that we spread in the intersection. The kids asked if we were alive then, and Steve answers, "Well, your mom was." Men!
Fall, Leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Today we visited Lawrence Woods State Nature Preserve in Hardin County. The preserve features one mile of boardwalk deep into the woods passing buttonbush swamps and through mature forest. What a pleasure to walk through the fallen leaves and autumnal trees swaying in the heavy wind, protected by their trunks and branches. We decided that this is a trail to visit often as the seasons change. The boardwalk would nicely screen little feet from mud in the spring rains when the wild flowers and trees are in bloom and the mature trees would be amazing with a nice blanket of snow!
Maddie's eagle-eye spotted this walking stick on the boardwalk. Those guys can really move when a two-year-old is on their trail!
I had no idea that we live so close to a large population of Old Order Amish. The way they harvest their corn makes their fields distinctive this time of year. Many of the homes post signs with the products they have for sale. We didn't have time to get any brown eggs or homemade cheese, but we'll consider that in our timing next trip and be sure we visit a few of these farms. 
