The Genial Hearth
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Archive for Nature Study
February 29, 2008 at 2:01 pm · Filed under Bilby, Home Education, Nature Study, Puggle
Week Two
This morning we headed out to Herdsman’s Lake again (twice in two weeks! I’m impressed!):-) It wasn’t nearly as chilly as last week (could have been because we were an hour later, but I think it’s also just hotter this week:-( )
I’m not sure which of the factors was the cause (I’m assuming it was one of them!), but we saw a number of different birds this week, and the distribution was also quite different (lots of Swans, not many Ibis‘ or Purple Swamp Hens and no Dusky Moorhens that I noticed).
We did see a Yellow Billed Spoonbill (just one), as well as quite a number of Australian Shelducks (including one that appeared to have only one foot—we noticed it limping, and then a more attentive look revealed what appeared to be a stump!) We also saw what might be a Grebe or Cormorant… but I don’t know enough to identify it (and there was too much else for me to remember!) (We also saw a lot of Pacific Black Ducks, but we did last week as well—I just didn’t seem to mention it!)
When we first arrived we heard a lot of bees in several of the Eucalyptus trees. It was a good opportunity to remind Puggle to listen carefully. He (actually, both of them) certainly did a lot better at being quiet and moving slowly:-) We were actually able to listen a few times along the way, and he spent a lot more time watching rather than chasing the birds:-) Today’s big activity was finding a stick to sweep the track after himself.
After last week, I thought I’d try using the stroller. It definitely made for a more pleasant time. Bilby was able to walk and be put in the stroller and taken out again much more easily—and I had put our drinks and snacks and my nature journal and the camera in the stroller basket… more stuff than I had last week, because I wasn’t as worried about carrying it all and carrying Bilby later when she got tired (and I was also tired!) As a result, I took a number of photos (although, I’ll have to wait to upload them, until the film is developed) and even tried a drawing!
We ended up being out for nearly two hours! It was rather longer than I had anticipated, but we were enjoying ourselves, so there was no particular reason to stop:-) It did mean that we came straight home to lunch and naps… so there was no time for Puggle to draw/colour (I had forgotten to take paper for him… I think I need to assemble a nature walk bag, that has journals and pencils and his mini-binoculars… so that they’re all ready to go). We did talk over lunch about our walk.
I asked him for the 1/2/3 words in response to the prompt—but he struggled a bit (even with my modelling) because he’s not used to counting the number of words:-) But after a while he came up with some phrases:-) One word for something he heard was quite easy (although, not for me to write!) “eee-ee-eee”—a pretty good mimicing of one of the birds we heard. I chose “chirruping”, also a bird I’m sure, but I don’t remember it from last week. Two words for something he saw was either “Purple Swamphen” (it’s sometimes written as two words!) or “Crab nippers” (we saw just the nippers, on the trail… being eaten by ants), mine was (somewhat fudged!) “Synchronised-swimming Swans”. There were a group of about five swans who were obviously eating. They kept turning themselves upside down, tails in the air and feet kind of dangling and waving. There were a number of times where two or three of them were either upside down together, or were alternating almost rhythmically… It made me think of the Olympics:-) Three words for something he felt were “Sun and breeze”, I chose “Stamens raining down” for the bits of gum flower that dropped all over us when we stopped to listen to the bees. Interestingly, the sense he seemed to be most ready to note was smell… he frequently paused and asked me to smell something (we’re working on not picking stuff!). Mostly, I couldn’t identify anything (or even smell anything distinctive), but he was very interested in something.
I spent last night wrestling with the .pdf of The Handbook of Nature Study (it’s really long! Nearly 1000 pages—and I think probably more than that if you count all the blank pages at the start.) I’m printing out the bits I’m reading, but it takes a bit to work out which pages they actually are! Now that I have the index out though, that should be easier. I think we’ll just focus on birds for now. They’re definitely what Puggle’s noticing (aside from excavators and ditch diggers… sadly they’re very visible from the lake:-( ) I need to read up on them (I got as far as printing those pages last night, but was too tired to read them then. It should be easier if I build checking the next Green Hour assignment as part of my Sunday prep for the week… that’ll give me more time to read and digest so I can use the new information for the next walk:-) )
I should check what state the “Parts of a Bird” cards are in—I may actually have finished laminating them, and that might be a good thing to introduce to him about now.
And in spite of my good intentions, he’s napping now (he’s essentially given up his naps… and while he does still occasionally sleep, that usually means he doesn’t settle to sleep in the evening—and we’re out tonight…)
February 22, 2008 at 3:11 pm · Filed under Blogging, Home Education, Nature Study
This week was our first attempt at joining the Green Hour Challenge:-) I read the suggested excerpt from ‘The Handbook of Nature Study‘ (and found it surprisingly approachable… I’m still not sure that we’ll buy
in hard copy—I’m not sure how US-centric it is… but certainly worth a peruse).
This morning we headed out to Herdsman’s Lake again 
(I can’t believe it’s so long since we went!) This time I wasn’t necessarily planning so much of a walk (I knew Bilby would want to walk, and that would slow us down:-) ). We strolled (pausing to watch a Black Swan floating on the water, with it’s head tucked into it’s body) down to the bench on the small headland. We sat there, had a drink and nibbled on some fruit. This had the advantage of keeping the children a little still, so that the birds actually wandered not too far away—they soon retreated once elevenses was over! From here, we saw a number of other birds (although, I don’t think there were as many varieties as we saw in August).
Puggle was very interested in the birds (which moved:-) ) while Bilby preferred listening to the sounds they made… I think between the two of them they may have confused some of the birds by calling back to them:-) Puggle was very taken with the White Ibis‘ (we saw a lot of them flying), and I was entranced by the Purple Swamp Hens that were eating in the grasses. We also saw Dusky Moorhens, Eurasian Coots, Pacific Black Ducks and one Magpie Lark (that let us get surprisingly close!)
We stayed out for about an hour. Unfortunately there was quite a chilly breeze, and although I thought about taking the kid’s jackets, it’s February! Who would think they’d need jackets now?! I’ll be a bit more together next week:-)
It seems that Puggle was most taken with the Swans and the Ibis’, so they are what we’ll investigate this coming week. Given Bilby’s interest, I should try to find some recordings of bird song, so that we can learn to identify them:-) I have printed out some of the photos from those links, and labelled them (Puggle insisted!) Puggle has been keen to copy pictures from Drawing with Children, so I thought he might like to try copying from the photos:-) We’ll see:-)
February 19, 2008 at 2:23 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Home Education, Nature Study
I really like the look of this! Nature study hasn’t been happening at all, maybe this is just the kickstart I need!
January 8, 2008 at 8:00 pm · Filed under Art, Books, Domestic Life, Family, Food, For Adults, For Children, For the Future, French, History, Home Education, Language, Latin, Maths, Montessori, Music, Narration, Nature Study, Organisation, Plans, Puggle, Reading, Science, Singing, Writing
General stuff:-)
As I was happy with the structure of our year in 2007, we’ll stick with the same thing in 2008. I have made a decision about the term names. This year we’ll have Boronia, Dorothea and Edith terms. They’re two great-grandmothers and one great-great-grandmother, covering three of the four branches of our family tree. We’ll start the week beginning January 13th. I have plans for a Cornucopia (as I believe they do in Germany at the start of the school year) containing coloured pencils, some new glue and scissors, more sticky tape, counters, and any other bits of stationery type things I think of to include.
Language (Including Memorisation and Copywork)
I have definite plans in this area, but I’m hoping to be able to keep a grip on myself! I’m planning to begin using Writing Road to Reading
this year. I’m not necessarily thinking that we’ll use it as written, but I thought I would use their order to work through the phonograms, and aim to introduce them all this year… but mostly it will act as a resource for me—so I can look things up if I don’t know why phonograms make their sound (there were a surprising number I didn’t know when I read it a year or so ago!) As Puggle reaches the appropriate stages, I’m planning to be ready with I Spy, Moveable Alphabet, Object Boxes, Action Cards, and Reading Folders—the first two should be fairly immediate, the others I’ll work on making, so they’ll be ready when he is up to them. (I’m not going to link to all of the specific materials… I have posts planned when they’re made, or if you’re desperate to know (!) ask me in the comments:-) )
Otherwise, we’ll continue with Latin Nursery Rhymes (I have enough for two per Block!) and I’m going to add in some everyday Latin phrases (look, careful, listen, sit up etc.). We’ll start doing the same for French, so a nursery rhyme per fortnight, and everyday French phrases (I still need to sort out which comptines we’ll use).
For Memorisation, we’ll be using When We Were Very Young
, by A. A. Milne. We’ll basically read and repeat a poem a week, and I’d like to pick one of the four (actually, I think it’s five per Block) to work on memorising. There are sufficient short ones that it should be possible from the start of the year.
We’ll begin Copywork properly this year. I’ll re-introduce the sandpaper letters when we do that phonogram, and I’ll also provide a Sand Tray for practice (still need to finish that). I also need to complete our ‘Metal’ Insets, which he can practice with. For these, he’ll use the ‘Lyra’ coloured pencils which are thick, triangular ones. Hopefully this will assist Puggle’s proper writing grip.
Maths
I’m basically intending a fairly Montessori style approach. I have a number of started Sensorial materials, (Pink Tower, Broad Stair, Square of Pythagoras), some completed (Red Rods, Geometric Solids—a Christmas gift, but still, ready to use), and plans to make some others Geometric Cabinet, Constructive Triangles, Binomial Cube, Trinomial Cube and Geometric Cards. I am similarly in progress with Maths materials, some complete (Number Rods, Sandpaper Numbers, Number Tablets and Number Cards), some almost complete (Spindle Box), and plans to make some of the rest.
My plan is to prepare the materials, present them as he seems ready, but just leave him to work with them as he sees fit. Obviously well also be talking about numbers as a normal part of our day (cooking, measuring and various number related books we read).
I also figured that my resolution to play more games can’t but help with maths:-)
English Studies
We’ll be reading all year from The Aesop for Children
illustrated by Milo Winter. These are quite brief re-tellings, and this is the main place I’ll be working on developing Narration. I am hoping that we’ve both kind of got a grasp on it by the end of the year:-)
We’ll also be reading a selection of stories over the year from The Lilac Fairy Book
, The Pink Fairy Book
, The Violet Fairy Book
and The Olive Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. As a family read-aloud (so, not necessarily in Mat Time, and quite possibly starting to be some before bed reading—depending on the story!) we’ll be reading selections from Complete Illustrated Stories
by Hans Christian Anderson for the first part of the year, and all of Winnie-the-Pooh
by A. A. Milne for the last term (Edith Term:-) ) Essentially that will break down to three fables, one Fairy Book story, and one Family Read-Aloud selection a week—which I think should be do-able. I may in fact not do all the fables, but rather choose between them at the time. Certainly I doubt that we’ll be narrating more than one!
Health and Phys. Ed
We’re continuing with our weekly swimming lessons. I thought I might try introducing some yoga (through cards that he can do himself, once I’ve shown them to him). We’re working on making the ‘back’yard more contained, and we’re digging a hole for the trampoline. When he’s out there he rarely stops moving:-) I would also like to work (again!) on establishing regular Nature Walks.
(At his age I’m not seriously planning things here… But in the future I’ll need to consider this Learning Area, so I’m noting it now.)
History and Geography
We’re basically going to stick with geography for now. Puggle is really aware of maps, so we’ll make use of the Picture Atlas we have, and he got a pretty good world map puzzle for Christmas. I have plans to make a few more, plus some land and water forms (more of those Montessori materials!) We also plan to acquire a globe.
Science
I intend (once again!) to work on including a weekly Nature walk. I’m not going to worry too much about it until the weather gets more pleasant (so, not until at least March), as I figure it’s one thing to maintain a habit when the weather drops off… but it’s much harder to establish it. We will do some more gardening. We’ll also begin observing the weather.
Aside from these, I’ve been working on various ‘Parts of Animal’ cards, and I’ll finish those, and I have plans for some of the Botany Cabinet stuff.
Art and Music
After my library find earlier this year, I was really excited to discover a copy of The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas
(a single edition version of the book I’d found, plus its companion volumes) by Fiona Watts in a local shop just before Christmas. It became a family present:-) I’m planning to use this for the practical side of our art curriculum—for some years:-) I’ve decided to stick to a theme per term (at this stage, media), so I’ve pulled all the watercolour and wax crayon/oil pastel ideas out. My plan is to prepare the materials for the activity, and leave that with the book (open to the page) on the sewing cabinet. Hopefully Puggle will have the opportunity to attack the idea multiple times if he chooses. (They’re not really independent things, but it is about the process… and I’m happy to assist or inform when he wants… we’ll see how that goes.)
We’ll continue following the Ambleside Online Artist study schedule, so that means this year will be Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn and Jan van Eyck.
When I was at my last school, I was good friends with the music teacher. She was a real Kodály afficienado. She lent me The Kodály Method I: Comprehensive Music Education
by Lois Choksy which I read with great interest. (I can’t follow it all yet, but I find it very inspiring.) I’ve since got my own copy so I can read and mull (and work on!), and that’s where my practical music programme is coming from—I was already planning on singing:-) We’ll continue with our Ambleside based Folksong plan, but I’ll be sure to include a range of nursery rhymes as suggested, and make sure that we talk about and experiment with the ten aspects of music that are introduced in the Preschool year plan.
We’re also following the Ambleside Composer study schedule, so Boronia Term we’ll listen to Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Aelexander Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky. Dorothea Term will be George Frederic Handel, and Edith Term we’ll listen to works by Camille Saint-Saens and Hector Berlioz.
Technology and Enterprise
(This is probably my least consisdered area… bizarre given that it’s what I taught! I guess there are a couple of reasons for that. I just don’t think as an eary it’s as important as some of the others, but equally, I’m fairly confident of my ability to wing it for a while… no need to plan at all at this stage. I do have an idea of developing a woodwork curriculum for junior primary homeschooled kids… when we reach that stage, so a little way ahead of me for now:-) )
He got a toolbox for Christmas… so we’ll start some woodwork:-) And of course, more cooking:-)
(I could never be an unschooler! But maybe I should re-read my The Latin-Centered Curriculum
… this seems as though it may be a little over the top…)
In the next week before we start, I have quite a bit of sorting still to do:-( Arranging equipment/books so that they’re accessible and making sure that we have all the bits (music, still need Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, and the French comptines are proving challenging:-( ) we need. I also have a long list of materials I plan to make (or finish) in the first half of this year… I’m going to be quite busy:-)
November 4, 2007 at 2:24 pm · Filed under Home Education, Nature Study
For those of you who are local, and have kids (or I guess, anyone else local)!
(from an email originally sent by John A Considine, Member, Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority)
King’s Park is looking for input about establishing a wilderness learning and play facility in the Park. Information can be found here.
Basically the idea is to bring families and children into close contact with a bushland experience with free-play opportunities such as children building cubbies etc.
They want to provide an opportunity for families to learn about natural environments and to promote their conservation. A simple ‘I support’ or ‘I oppose’ will suffice (along with your name and private address), but constructive comment would be even more welcome.
October 4, 2007 at 12:51 am · Filed under Carnivals, Charlotte Mason, Music, Nature Study
The second Charlotte Mason Carnival is up—with a focus on music:-) A common theme seems to be the suggestion of YouTube as a great resource for Composer Study.
On a related note, I didn’t want to loose track of Higher Up and Further In’s (a great CM resource!) post on Learning to Play the Piano.
(I didn’t post about the first one, looking at Nature Study, but I found a number of interesting posts through it… and was re-inspired:-) )
August 31, 2007 at 10:29 am · Filed under Bilby, Charlotte Mason, Home Education, Nature Study, Puggle, Science
We went walking today, at Herdsman Lake. I’m amazed that I have never been there before—I’ve lived within a couple of kilometres of it for most of my life! Bilby was a little less settled than I would have liked (there was just so much to see!) so we couldn’t settle in and have a go at drawing, but other than that, it was a lovely morning.
It reinforced just how bad my general nature knowledge is:-( But I can use the net:-) Since getting home I’ve managed to identify most of what we saw (I’m sure we saw a couple of others, but I could only remember a certain number of images).
I’m fairly sure we saw some Australian Ravens, Australian White Ibis, Black Swans, Dusky Moorehens, Eurasian Coots, Pacific Black Ducks and the ubiquitous Willie Wagtail. Puggle also assures me that we heard some Australian Magpies (and given that he has been able to identify them, including by song, for at least a year, I’m inclined to think he’s correct!)
I also think we saw Magpie Larks, Little Black Cormorants, Laughing Turtle-doves (almost certainly a turtle-dove of some sort) and Welcome Swallows (but they were darting around so quickly that it was very hard to tell). I am pretty sure there were another couple of dark-coloured, wading type birds, but I can’t remember sufficient details.
Next time, I’ll take a camera! I’m assuming it’ll take me a while to get decent bird photos, but there were some terribly picturesque paperbarks (about a third of the way down the page):-) There were also some Bottlebrush that were flowering at a convenient height for close observation of the flowers—very cool:-)
July 26, 2007 at 3:19 pm · Filed under For the Future, Home Education, Nature Study, Science
Puggle keeps noting bugs and insects and caterpillars, and asking me what they are.
I keep forgetting to find a good source for answers:-(
But now the Headmistress has posted some links someone sent to her—all about bugs! And there’s even some Australian sites (lots of homeschoolers have links to bug sites but they tend to be in the US, so probably not so useful for us).
What’s that Bug?
The Spider’s Parlour (Victorian spiders)
Spider ID Chart
March 16, 2007 at 12:00 am · Filed under Charlotte Mason, Domestic Life, Garden, Home Education, Nature Study, Puggle
I’ve long thought that I need to spend more time outside so that the boy would spend some time exploring the garden (he doesn’t spend much time out there if I’m doing anything else, I have to be right there with him). So, this morning, we took a rug and a small pile of books (our ’school’ books) out to sit in the yard. I also took some sewing, on the off-chance that he’d wander around.
Later, he went and collected some food, so that we could have a picnic outside. (I need to be a bit more organised about this, maybe if we can sort ourselves out to get outside with everything regularly, it’ll be easier to go somewhere to be outside… )
We had a lovely time! We read, and he and I narrated. We sang (although, he wasn’t so impressed with that for some reason). He didn’t go exploring, but he did lay in my lap and watch the sky. There weren’t many clouds, but he talked about the colour, and the birds he could see. It was delightful:-)
Sadly tomorrow has too much else happening to repeat it. Maybe Saturday:-)
January 25, 2007 at 10:33 pm · Filed under Classical, For the Future, Home Education, Nature Study, Science, Science
How is it I have never come across this before?
I’ve just downloaded it. It is mac friendly. It gave me a world map to select my location (I was expecting it to be US-centric). It even has a night-time mode, so you can take it outside and not disturb your night vision!
This will go wonderfully with the hammock!
January 24, 2007 at 10:41 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Garden, Nature Study
My parents are moving. After nearly 30 years, they’re moving to a smaller house (now that my brother and sister have finally left home). As a result, they’re throwing out stuff. The other day they had a garage sale. One of the things that my brother had put out to sell was a self-standing hammock I had given him years ago. It didn’t sell, so I claimed it.
Today I brought it home, and set it up.
Puggle and I sat out and had our afternoon drinks, and looked at the sky and trees. We had a fabulous time:-)
December 14, 2006 at 10:06 pm · Filed under Advent, Christmas, Craft, Domestic Life, Family, For the Future, Nature Study, Puggle, Season
Today, Puggle made presents for the family.
I took the idea from something we did at Co-op earlier in the year.
You start with four pieces of contact, about 10 x 10 centimetres, one length of curling ribbon or raffia, and a collection of ’stuff’. I had planned to use mostly red, green and sparkly pieces of paper, with some punched shapes. Over the last few days though, Puggle has been cutting a lot of strips of coloured paper, and that seemed a pity to waste. He has also been cutting the wrappers from the chocolate coins and lollies he has received in the last few days, so they made it in as well.
Take two of the pieces of contact, remove the backing paper and lay them one above the other. Place the ribbon across both of them and extending out the top. Arrange the ’stuff’ on the contact. When it looks “pretty”, cover with the other pieces of contact. Tie a loop in the top of the ribbon, and then you’re done.
This is an idea that I plan to use when we begin nature study. I think that completing one square after a nature walk, then the following week/month, adding another below it and so on, would be an effective way of watching a particular location change.
October 17, 2005 at 1:08 pm · Filed under Home Education, Nature Study, Puggle
I have just been out on the patio eating lunch with the boy (it’s such a nice day). I am regularly amazed by the birds we see there—given Kabuki… But I guess he’s not much of a hunter:-)
The boy is fascinated by birds. I think I shall have to find out more about the different sorts we see. I think there were four types… definitely magpies, but I have not a clue about the rest.
August 31, 2004 at 4:11 pm · Filed under Books, For Children, For the Future, Garden, Nature Study, Puggle
I sent it off last night:-) With a whole day to spare (I’d had it for about a year in the end). I ended up with four selections for one chapter, but all the rest were two or three only. Having finished, I find I really enjoyed the opportunity to go back and closely re-read a book I have loved for many years. I often (once a year I guess) read it again, but rarely concentrate as closely as I did this time. I am now going to take on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ by Arthur Ransome as my next project… hopefully it will take me less than a year to do:-)
In other reading, I took ‘Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots’ by Sharon Lovejoy out of the library on the recommendation of one of the homeschooling lists I’m on. It’s fabulous! It has details for a number of garden projects to do with kids, and I am now longing for Puggle to be old enough to do some of them:-)
I’m also in the process of reading ‘What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew’ by Daniel Poole. I’ve had it for years, but I don’t think I’ve read the whole thing through before. I’m kind of on a Regency kick at the moment thanks to ‘Regency House Party’ being on at the moment.
Anyway. Time to go outside some more. The weather is fabulous at the moment. Beautiful sunny, clear days. It’s actually possible to get hot just wandering around outside. I’m really enjoying getting outside and walking—rather a shock to me:-)
by A. A. Milne
by Andrew Lang
