Get Outdoors Challenge :: April 20

What is more fun than a big pile of dirt on an empty lot?

A big pile of dirt with a bunch of friends!

Sketch Tuesday ~ Native Fish or Reptile

This week's assignment was to sketch a fish or reptile native to our country.

We live in Canada, and so grabbed our field guides and set out to decide what to draw.

Andre loves sharks and asked me if Canada had sharks. I wasn't sure about this, so we looked it up and found out that we do! Even one of his favourites, the Thresher Shark. It can be found in the Atlantic, off the coast of Newfoundland.

Adrienne drew a skink. It can be found in Ontario.

Celeste told me she drew a little snake.

I quickly sketched a Midland Painted Turtle. We had seen these turtles on one of nature walks recently.

You can visit Harmony Fine Arts blog for more information about Sketch Tuesday.

Get Outdoors Challenge :: April 19

We had a beautiful afternoon at the park today with our homeschool friends.

Book Sharing Monday :: Art Auction Mystery

Art Auction Mystery: Find the Fakes, Save the Sale! written by Anna Nilsen is a fun activity picture book. In this story, 16 paintings that are about to be auctioned have been stolen and replaced with fakes. You are invited to help Henry Hammer (the auctioneer) find the fakes and put together the clues to catch the mastermind behind this crime.

We are still working through this book, but I wanted to share it anyway. Adrienne loves mysteries and puzzles, this book is perfect for her!

There are two other titles, similar to this one, by the same author:

Art Fraud Detective
The Great Art Scandal

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Spring Bird Study

We have been watching the Red-Winged Blackbirds eating at our backyard bird feeder and listening to them too, near our house and at the farmer's field.

As part of our ongoing nature study, we decided to find out more about these particular birds. The Handbook of Nature Study has a couple of pages (pg 117 to 119) on this particular type. The Red-Winged Blackbird male is one of the earliest visitors in the spring in our area, the female comes a few weeks later. The male is mostly black with red and yellow on the epaulets, while the female is mostly brown.

I read the pages aloud from the Handbook of Nature Study and discussed our observations together, using some of the questions from the lesson on page 119. I find these questions are a great starting point to get our conversations going, but I wouldn't try to use every single question available!

We found the Red-Winged Blackbird in the Feeder Birds Colouring Book by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and National Audubon Society and used it on our notebook page instead of sketching the bird this time.

We also listened to its song on our Backyard Birdsong Guide (from Cornell) and online as well at the All About Birds site.

We went for a walk near our house and could hear a lot of birds. I took a short video and you can hear the Red-Winged Blackbirds in it, along with a few other birds, and our dog panting too!

Barb at Handbook of Nature Study Blog has excellent suggestions for doing this Spring Bird Study