Spring Nature Study ~ Apple Tree

As part of the Outdoor Hour Challenges, we are studying apple trees or flowering trees. We don't have any in our yard, but we knew of a crabapple tree close by.

We missed the blooming flowers but could see the tiny little apples starting to grow!

We decided to do a leaf rubbing for our nature journal page:

We found a few books at our local library on the subject and these two were our favourite.

Both books are beautiful and educational.

Our Apple Tree by Gorel Kristina Naslund shows an apple tree  through all four seasons. I took a photo of the page that showed the tree in the stage of the crabapple tree we studied:

The other book is One Red Apple written by Harriet Ziefert. I thik it is probably meant for younger children, but we all enjoyed the art by Karla Gudeon.

You can visit the Handbook of Nature Study blog for more ideas on how to study an apple tree. There is so much to learn!

Spring Nature Study ~ Cattails

We have been studying cattails over the last two seasons. There is a spot where a few grow near our home, so we headed over last week to see their progress. They look different than last time we saw them, in the winter. They were all puffed up as Celeste said!

We will check on them in a couple of weeks again to see their changes.

There are many ideas on nature study at the Handbook of Nature Study blog.

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Spring Weather

For our ongoing seasonal weather study, we didn't go far. We stepped into our backyard and looked up at the sky!

The weater has been beautiful here in South Western Ontario these past few days and today again. The temperature is 18 degrees Celsius, with a light breeze. It is very sunny with only a few high cumulus clouds.

We made a sundial but realized that there was still a bit too much wind to use this paper sundial, which led to a short talk about what materials would be best to use for a more permanent sundial.

For more ideas on weather observations, you can visit the Handbook of Nature Study Weather Observations post.

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ More Signs of Spring

We have had a few more signs of spring since my last post. This time all photos are from around our house. We all paid close attention to see what was showing signs of spring...

Here is the first one:

We started working on our garden patch. Last summer, my husband built us 2 big rectangles for us to plant our vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Celeste and Andre both helped me with pulling all the weeds out and raking.

We have had a few birds visit, including this Mallard duck couple!

I guess they liked our garden.

The small maple tree in our yard is home to our homemade bird feeder (a juice container) and one Red-Winged Blackbird keeps on visiting.

We also saw lots of new buds growing in our yard and some plants growing already:

This big green one at the front was here when we moved two years ago. We will need to identify it this year. The red one was also here, as well as the one in between.

The two photos above are from the same bush. My aunt gave it to us as a house warming present and called it a Burning Bush. It has beautiful red leaves.

These cute buds are from our blueberry bush. We planted this one last year and it looks like it made it through the winter.

The lily of the valley plants were in the front of our house, in full sun when we moved in. They were planted by the previous owners. I moved them to a different spot, that doesn't have as much sun. I can't wait to see those beautiful little flowers and bring them inside. I love their fragrance.

These two photos are both from an Hydrangea that I planted last year. It looks like it survived too!

We loved looking for signs of spring right in our backyard!

Here is the post at Handbook of Nature blog that can help you get started on your search for signs of spring: Signs of Spring Bonus Challenge.

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Seasonal Tree Study ~ Spring

Spring is here!

We are continuing on with our nature study and with the Outdoor Hour Challenges.

This past week we completed our year long seasonal tree study.

We measured our birch tree and noticed that the height is about the same, the tallest point is measuring about 6ft 4. The main trunk is 2.5 inches.

We noticed little buds popping out, but no leaves yet. There were no birds or insects in the tree when we observed it, but we have seen birds stopping on its branches before (which makes the tree bend!).

Andre measured and sketched the tree onto our notebook page.

We really enjoyed looking at our birch tree and noticing the little buds. We only planted it last year, so this was its first winter and we were really happy to see that it survived!

If you like to find more about how to participate in this spring nature study, please visit the Handbook of Nature Study blog.

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Signs of Spring

We went for a walk this afternoon, in our usual spot, past the farmer's field near our house. I gave the kids the Spring Nature Walk Scavenger Hunt page and told them to try to find the items on it during our walk.  Adrienne took charge with the clipboard and started delegating to her younger siblings who would be looking for what. I just backed away and let them do their thing!

They saw lots of mud, some dry, some squishy, some really wet:

some new green grass, poking through the mud, which counted as "something moving in the breeze" and something that they smell:

A bright red bug that we need to identify:

They heard many birds and saw a few as well, like this robin:

They saw and heard water running in the little creek (one spot had a little current):

They felt many things during their scavenger hunt:

something warm from the sun - sticks and twigs

something cool in the shade - metal fence

something moist or wet - mud

something soft or smooth - rock

They also had a lot of fun playing in the muddy part of the creek, and crossing from one side to the other (many times)!

I had a lovely time watching them, taking photos, and sitting with Orion (our dog)!

We agreed that we need to do this scavenger hunt again in a few weeks, since we didn't notice any wildflowers, blossoms or new leaves on the trees. We also didn't see any bees or worms.

This was part of our Outdoor Hour Challenges. You can read more about this particular Signs of Spring one here.

Outdoor Hour Challenge ~ Winter Series ~ Mammals: Wolf, Fox, and Dog

This week we decided to study mammals. Barbara at the Handbook of Nature Study blog has been posting some beautiful spring wildflowers photos, but we don't have those here yet, so we looked at other challenges and picked Challenge #51: Wolf, Fox, and Dog.

I started by reading one of the stories from the Burgess Animal Book for Children. while the kids were finishing their lunch. We don't have a copy of it, but I found it online at Project Gutenberg. I read aloud story #28 Old Man Coyote and Howler the Wolf. We enjoyed this story a lot.

Next, Adrienne and I watched the documentary from PBS Nature : In the Valley of the Wolves. The documentary is beautiful, set in Yellowstone National Park, and very informative. I agree with Barb that some parts may be difficult for younger children to see, but Adrienne and I were fine with it, having watched nature documentaries with top predators before.
We coloured while watching the movie, a fox colouring page and a grey wolf one. We paused a few times during the show to discuss what we were seeing, and many times we were amazed how the wolves looked like our dog Orion.

Our colouring pages:

After we were finished the PBS show, we filled in our Mammals journal page. I printed a mammal journal on both sides of the paper. We completed one side for the Red Fox.

The other side we decided would be our dog study.  I grabbed the Handbook of Nature Study, our dog, and we set out to answer some of the questions from page 258.
Here is a description of our dog:

Orion is our Siberian Husky. He will be one in April and was very cooperative with us.

We measured him from head to the tip of the tail. He is about 54 inches, with 13 inches being his bushy tail. We knew that he was about 70 lbs, so I didn't bother trying to weigh him!

He has a few different colours in his thick coat, grey, black, beige and white. His coat has two layers, an undercoat and a top coat. His eyes are beige/yellow. The journal page asked "how does this mammal defend itself?", we haven't seen him defend himself, but we guessed that he would growl, show his teeth, and bite. Adrienne also said that he might just run.

We then moved on to the questions in the book.

We looked at his legs and compared them to our cat's legs. His legs are long and strong, which we thought would allow him to run for long distances.

We looked at his feet and pads and compared them to the cat's. Our cat's pads are soft and the skin feels lighter, thiner. Orion's are hard and tough. We talked about how dogs would be able to travel through rougher terrain with those pads. Siberian huskies can also withstand colder temperatures, even though in the frozen areas they would need booties to keep their paws safe, if they were out for long periods of time.

Orion's (dog) paw:

Clara's (cat) paw :

We also looked at the differences in their claws. Orion can't retract his claws and they are thicker and harder. They are heavier and we can't bend them. Adrienne deducted that this might help him grip the ground better when he is running.

Orion's claws:

Clara's claws (we never de-clawed her):

We noticed that Orion's body is lean and muscular, as opposed to Clara, our cat, which feels soft and squishy (we didn't squish her, but hug them each and that was the best word we could come up with!).

Another difference were in their eyes. Their pupils are also very different. Adrienne talked about how cats could see better in the dark than dogs and how dogs would likely rely on their sense of smell more than their eyes at night.

We looked at Orion's ears and read the explanation in the Handbook of how important the shape of the ear is to the dog's ability to hear. Orion's ears are covered in fur.

The nose on the dog is up front, with the nostrils right at the front. The skin is rough around the nose. We thought this would help protect his nose while he is sniffing rough ground or surfaces. We talked about how dogs use their sense of smell to "identify" people.

Last, we talked about how Orion expresses himself and shows us his emotions. Our dog "talks" a lot. He hardly barks, but talks a lot. It sounds a little bit like howling, but he has so many different sounds that it's quite entertaining! He can also "cry". The position of his ears is important as well to his language. He doesn't wag his tail as much as other dogs.

We didn't go outside for this Outdoor Challenge but we had a great time learning more about wolves, foxes and our dog.

You can read more about the Outdoor Challenge here.

If you would like to do the same nature study on wolves, foxes and dogs, you can read all about it here.