baby snapping turtle and other creatures

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.

Nature Study

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

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.

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We practiced the range of shading we could get from our pencil and tested the crosshatching technique. This is Makenna's sample page.



Maddie's blind contour (age 7 1/2). After careful study of the acorn, she drew this with her eyes closed, without picking up her pencil.




My acorn study practicing blind contours, modified contours and 5, 10 and 20 second drawings. You may open your eyes for the modified contour but you may not pick up your pencil.


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.





Maya's acorn (nearly 6). Maya used crosshatching for the detail on the cap of her acorn.