Crack the Egg

A Good Read-Aloud Book on Insects? Yes!

    Jean Henri Fabre liked to lay on the ground observing ants crawling and digging.  I've observed this tendency in my own son.  Whether or not he will do what Fabre did remains to be seen.  Fabre became a famous French entomologist.

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

 

    The Dover translation of Fabre's Book of Insects is just plain fun to read, but is also an excellent book for any nature-loving kid or the kid who might think that bugs are boring.

 Sixteen Chapters include:

• the Praying Mantis
• Grubs
• Locusts
• the Anthrax Fly
• and the Glow-worm.

     He also includes a chapter on his first lessons in nature watching and why he wished to have his own bare spot for identifying and observing insects. 

     I love that Fabre's writing shows how he took his passion to a level beyond most people by patience, diligence, and persistence. 

• While he describes for us the Sacred Beetle rolling his ball of ground matter, he is also, unconsciously, describing how to observe nature in it's own setting. 
• When he writes about the bedroom and tunnel of the Cricket, he is causing us to see what the life of the insect consists of. 
• When he describes the queer body and head of Empusa with the "delicate appetites of the invalid," he is building for us a fascinating word picture of the world of entymology.

      Get this book and enjoy it with your own budding entomologist! 

 Robin

Creative Home Learning

 

 

 

 

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Want A Science Project Involving Nature Study?

 

Image by seth_k via Flickr

    Sometimes a simple thing can be the most fun.  Follow these steps for your own MINI BOTANY SCIENCE PROJECT.

1.  Plant a tree in an indoor pot or in your yard.  (Check at a nursery for a sapling or pick up a free seed from your yard or a park.) 

2. Track its growth for the next year.  Include the answers to the following questions: Did you mulch around it? Water it? Do nothing? How did the weather affect it?  What birds and wildlife does it attract? Are there any signs of insects or disease?
3. Augment your record by photographs of the tree taken at regular intervals, measurements of the tree's height, growth rate, and girth.  Collect leaf samples, bark rubbings, and make drawings the tree.
4. Write a final summary of the changes you have watched and any work you put into it.

    That's it!  Don't make it harder than it needs to be.  Trees can be started indoors over the winter (keep away from heat registers), then planted outside in the spring.  Or transplant it to a larger pot and place on a deck or patio for a moveable bit of garden.

Robin

Creative Home Learning

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Bird, Raptor, Kestrel: Mini Homeschooling Science Unit Study

    For a fun, mini nature or science unit study, go with birds. Break it down even more by studying raptors or birds of prey. And, for a unique raptor, look to kestrels (or the American Kestrel).

    In a nature center near our home, lives a kestrel named Falco.  He had dropped uninvited into a family's picnic.  He wanted their hotdogs.  Apparently, he had been handfed, so he had no fear of humans and knew little about finding food for himself.  The St. Paul Raptor Center took him in and decided he couldn't be sent back into the wild because of his behavior.  This medium-sized bird with the rust-colored back found a permanent home in the nature center. 

    Kestrels make good study subjects for many reasons.

• They are common all over the United States, so they are not impossibl

  Image via Wikipedia

  e to find whether you're on vacation or at home.
• Kestrels are often found on telephone and utility poles or fence posts alongside roads, so you can spot them from a car.
• Like hummingbirds, but unlike other raptors, kestrels can hover in one spot while beating their wings rapidly.  This is usually followed by a swift drop onto prey below. Again, this pattern is easily viewable because they often dive after prey in ditches along roads and highways.
• And, kestrels are easily recognizable for amateur birders: a robin-sized bird, two dark "sideburns" in front and behind its eyes, and a rusty orange back and tail.

    Our favorite book about raptors is Raptor! A Kid's Guide to Birds of Prey.  Although some of its websites are defunct, it gives good lists of hawk watching sites, organizations to see live raptors, and sites where public banding demonstrations take place.  A selected reference list is also available for those who want to read more.

    Ideas for Kestrel Study

• Make a comparison chart of a kestrel's size compared to other falcons.
• Look for kestrels in a raptor center, nature center, or zoo. 
• Create art.  Kestrels make a great subject for painting, colored pencils, or crayons, because of their spectacular coloring.  If you can't draw one from real life, use a computer image or book picture to trace first.
• List the steps one should do and not do, if you find an injured or apparently tame wild bird.  Use a raptor center web site for specific instructions.
• Check out  http://kestrelwatch.ahc.umn.edu/kestrel_home.cfm for participating in a kestrel bird count.
• Find a bird supply store and ask if they have seen kestrels in your area.  Of course, farmers may see kestrels, but one could also ask those in apartments in large cities.  Many birds, even raptors, have adapted to our cities.  Are kestrels one of them?

    Put any information you collect in

• a lapbook,
• on a poster,
• in a binder or notebook with other mini studies.

    Be sure to note your own sightings of kestrels.  Whatever you do, though, don't feed them hot dogs!

Robin

 

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Homeschooling With Merit Badge Booklets

     In a previous post, I encouraged you to consider joining the Boy Scouts of America if at all inclined.  However, if your family simply can't commit to a weekly program or you do not have any boys, you can still take advantage of their Merit Badge pamphlets.

    These pamphlets, really more booklets,  are excellent for a plethora of reasons.  Here's why you ought to consider them:

• These books may be written for boys, but are not boy-specific.  A girl can use them readily.
• Not only are they often available in your library, the books can be purchased from the official Boy Scouts website (www.scoutstuff.org/bsa), Amazon, or you may find used booklets at garage sales.
• New editions do show up, but the information is so solid, that using an older edition is not a disadvantage.
• New subjects and merit badges are introduced, too, to stay current with technology and resources.  Robotics is their newest book and merit badge to date.

    The books do more than introduce a subject, they explore it.  You can utilize the books in a number of ways whether you unschool or have a relaxed or eclectic homeschool.

• Give copies to a child who expresses an interest in a subject, like leatherwork. It will answer many questions about tools and the process as well as give instructions on actual projects.
• Give a copy on photography or graphic arts to whet their appetite for further study in that subject.  If a student has been wondering how radios work, "Radio" may answer their questions and even spark an interest in building and using their own.
• Use a pamphlet as a unit study.  Much can be done as a self-study by the student alone.  The parent acts as the "mentor" who determines whether the requirements have been met or who helps find resources, or with travel to a site, if required.  They allow for flexibility as a study.  Decide with the student ahead of time which requirements you'd like to see fulfilled and which can be skipped.
• Use as a base "text" for a study of your own.  Because they provide a foundation of information, it's easy to expand upon the topic using these as a starting point.
• Use for career exploration through either reading or working through a book.  If your child is interested in the outdoors, give them Forestry, Soil and Water Conservation, Architecture & Landscape Architecture, Fish & Wildlife Management, Geology, and Nature.  Your student will get descriptions of possible careers that would allow them to spend time outside or working to shape the outdoors. 

 

    The Merit Badge Pamphlets are written to the student, middle to high school, him (or her) self.  The emphasis is on learning and doing.  Isn't that what we want?  After all, knowledge combined with action creates the best kind of learning - experience.

 

Robin

 

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Homeschooling History, Nature, Geography, Reading: Rediscover Four Author-Illustrators

    As a children's writer, I believe that wonderful books are being written and illustrated today, but I wanted to highlight four author-illustrators popular a number of years ago who are worth discovering or rediscovering.  

    Styles in children's books may have changed (now more use of photographs, shorter bites of text), but some older books are too good to be forgotten or unread.  I have added an asterisk (*) when the book is still available for purchase.  Others you may need to scout for.  All are worth the hunt.

    C. Walter Hodges - a British author-illustrator and Shakespeare expert.  He may not be well-known in the States (he died in 2004), but his narratives of history are excellent and make great read-aloud selections.  I couldn't find any of these still in print, but your library may have one or more.

• The Norman Conquest
• Columbus Sails
• Shakespeare's Theater
• The Namesake
• The Marsh King
• The Overland Launch

    Holling Clancy Holling - History, geography, and nature from the viewpoint of one animal or small object and the people it comes in contact with and the lands it passes through over a period of time.  All my kids liked these and still pick them up as teenagers.

• Seabird *  An ivory bird sails the seas as water transportation changes.
• Minn of the Mississippi * A turtle travels the length of the Mississippi to the Gulf.
• Paddle-To-The-Sea * A carving takes a trip down the St. Lawrence River.
• Tree in the Trail *  A cottonwood tree watches history unfold on the Santa Fe trail.
• Pagoo * A hermit crab lives out its life in a tide pool.


    Bill Peet - Just for fun!  Quality fiction at its best for young kids.  Too many to name all, but here are some of my favorites.

• Buford the Little Bighorn * 
• Capyboppy *
• Randy's Dandy Lions *  
• The Whingdingdilly *
• Chester the Worldly Pig *
• Ella *
• Hubert's Hair Raising Adventure *
• many, many others

Jim Arnosky- If you like comfort food, Arnosky's books are the mac'n'cheese books of nature writings and illustrations.  Warm drawings and cozy text teach while you enjoy them.  Worthwhile finding used copies at book or garage sales.

• Crinkleroot series  
• Every Autumn Comes the Bear *
• Wild Tracks! A Guide to Nature's Footprints *
• Watching Water Birds *
• All About Manatees *
• Field Trips: Bug-Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird-watching, Shore Walking *
• many others

    Whether you want to supplement your kids' reading with quality non-fiction and fiction or use Hodges, Holling, or Arnosky for a Charlotte Mason approach to the study of history, geography, or nature in your home school, these author-illustrators are some of the best to enjoy. 

Robin

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Color in Homeschool Art: A Book For Learning To See

    Color constancy is the psychological tendency to see colors we expect to see even when the actual colors are different.  Dr. Betty Edwards explains this phenomenon in her book Color: A Course in Mastering the Art of Mixing Colors.  For example, place an orange under a light like a study lamp.  Is it really all orange?  No.  In reality, there is an almost total white spot from the light shining on it.  On the shadowed side, the orange is closer to a deep red-orange or brownish orange.  An artist must learn to see the real colors produced by the light on the orange while setting aside the color their brain tells them the orange is.

    A familiar example of this type of study is Claude Monet and his haystacks.  Each day he took ten or more canvases to work on.  As the light changed, he set aside one canvas to work on the next one.  Each canvas showed the different effects that the changing light had on the colors of the same objects.  The difference was in the hues of the colors.  Our brains like efficiency.  They tell us that we are looking at what we expect to see unless we concentrate on seeing what is, in fact, there.

    How does one break through color constancy to see correctly?  The author and teacher, Betty Edwards, suggests scanning an object by looking through your curled fist at a small portion of the object.  Note where the lightest hue is located, the position of the darkest hue, and finally, where the brightest hue shows up.  Try this with an egg, apple, baseball, or tennis ball.

    J.M.W. Turner, a 19th century English painter, would turn around and look backwards through his legs in order to overcome his color constancy.  I tried this, but it gave me a headache by the time I had identified what I needed to know!  Your kids may like this method, though.

    If you have a serious student gifted in art or a child who wants to go deeper into art theory, try Color as part of your drawing or art curriculum.  Her book takes the student step by step through mixing colors, the attributes of color, using a color wheel, harmony with color, and even understanding your own preferences in colors.  Exercises in mixing and painting with color are found at the end of each chapter.

    Whether using the Charlotte Mason, eclectic, classical, or relaxed homeschooling method, you may enjoy reading the last two chapters entitled "Seeing the Beauty of Color in Nature" and "The Meaning and Symbolism of Colors" to enhance your discussions while enjoying art or nature study. 

    I truly enjoyed this book and feel it changed the way I now see color in things around me.  From our tortoiseshell cat to a deep purple iris with a cream center that poked up in our garden, I have enjoyed "seeing" more color where I only saw a black and brown cat and a purple flower before. 

    Two of my three kids have used this book to make the transition from drawing to painting.  One, the more serious painter, has since gone back to it and her miniatures of flowers have a depth and warmth that was not there before.  Perhaps an understanding of color is all your artist needs to take their art to the next level!

Robin

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Famous Trees For Nature Study in Homeschools

Did you know that particular trees are famous and even considered celebriTREES? It's true! A few months ago, I read an adult book about historic and famous trees from George Washington's Tulip Poplar to the Treaty Oak in Austin, Texas. I thought, Why isn't there a kid's book about these trees? Now there is and it makes a wonderful addition to any tree or nature study.

CelebriTrees: Historic & Famous Trees of the World by Margi Preus covers fourteen trees famous for their longevity, size, and historic ties to religions, monarchs, and figures like Robin Hood. There is a Boab Prison Tree, "moon trees," and one with the official name of the Tree That Owns Itself. Examples cover the world from Australia and Georgia to Sicily and Mexico. While written for younger kids, older students can enjoy, then go get the adult book by the title of America's Famous and Historic Trees by Jeffrey G. Meyer.

Fun ways to enjoy this book:

• Draw and color examples of the specific types of trees, label them, and place on a world map. Put the Boab (looks like an upside down tree) on Derby, Australia. Put the Post Office tree (a bur oak with messages tacked to its trunk) on Kansas. (Geography, art, history)
• Visit one of the trees, if possible, or do an Internet search. What has happened to the tree? Do people still visit it? Why? How has it been preserved or cared for? For instance, so many people visited the Major Oak, the tree thought to be used by Robin Hood and his men, that the ground compacted and the roots began to starve. Now, you can see the tree, but outside the barrier. Check out www.eyemead.com/majoroak.htm for the fascinating history of this tree. (research, history)
• Write a real or pretend history of a tree of your own. (creative writing, family history)
• Contact a nearby nature center or state park and ask if they have any exceptional trees to visit. Unusually old trees? Trees hit by lightning? Largest known tree? Non-native species? Any trees with stories connected to them? (community history, nature study)

While CelebriTrees is written for younger kids, older students can enjoy it, then go get the adult book by the title of America's Famous and Historic Trees by Jeffrey G. Meyer. Just perusing the website for Historic Trees is fun and informative.

Whether you homeschool using an eclectic or Charlotte Mason method, or just read a lot with your kids, CelebriTrees is a fun book to supplement your students' writing, art, geography, nature study, or history.

Robin

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Finding Nature in the Meadowlands; Great Book for Homeschoolers

  When nature biomes, or ecosystems, are taught to our kids the obvious ones come to mind - desert, arctic, mountains, seashore.  Now there is a great book on the unique meadowlands system in New Jersey that is worth finding, reading, and studying.

    Meadowlands: A Wetlands Survival Story by Thomas f. Yezerski gives homeschoolers an excellent non-fiction book with beautiful illustrations in pen-and-ink watercolors. 

    Each two-page spread is surrounded by small drawings (all labelled) based on a theme of the text.  For example, fish surround the pages that explain how the river and the tides are cleaning the water in the meadowlands and providing healthier populations of aquatic life for even larger fish.  Birds of prey ring the pages that explain how migrating birds and the great blue heron have found their way back to this site now that there is food for them again. And chemicals and litter edge the pages that show how the Hackensack Meadowlands became polluted in the first place.

    The book covers more than describing a wetlands ecosystem, but also how a damaged and polluted system can be (and has been in the Hackensack Meadowlands) restored and healed again. 

SOME THINGS YOU COULD DO TO EXPAND THE LEARNING

• Choose an item, such as a candy wrapper, or a pollutant, such as hexavalent chromium, to look into its impact on an ecosystem.
• Do a study of the osprey and its recovery in New Jersey and elsewhere.
• Find out how many types of dragonflies (or fish or ducks or insects) live in a wetlands area.
• Choose a small spot to restore in your community or yard.  If this isn't feasible, find a polluted area and create a before and after picture of what it could look like, should someone fix it up.

    I like Meadowlands, because it shows us how things can change given time and effort while still serving the needs of people and wildlife.  A nonfiction gem!

Robin

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Elephant Communication Book For Kids Learning Zoology

    As a homeschooling mom and animal-lover, I'm always on the lookout for good non-fiction animal books.  Science books about animals and facets of zoology that tell something new are not numerous in my opinion.  Elephant Talk: The Surprising Science of Elephant Communication  by Ann Downer is one of the few. 

    Elephant Flying Squads.  Jacobson's Organ.  New training programs for mahouts in Thailand and efforts to redirect crop-raiding elephants in Kenya.  This is not your typical "here is the trunk" elephant book for kids. 

    Zoologists and biologists are only beginning to understand the methods of elephant communication. (Much of the research in this area was done in the last 10-20 years, so the feeling of being on the cutting edge is evident in the book's text.)  Examples are drawn from African forest elephants, African savanna elephants, and Asian elephants found in the wild and in zoos. 

   In spite of the research which asks more questions than it answers, there is still much the reader can learn now.  (In fact, isn't that often what science does - finds more questions than answers?)  Facts about body language with their ears and trunks, the many vocalizations of elephants, and their ability to create infrasound and vibrations are covered. 

    The relationship between humans and elephants is discussed as well as work in conservation.  Apparently there is an effort to remove elephants from zoos and place them in sanctuaries.  I was not aware of this, but it would make a good discussion project.  Is it feasible?  With many remodeled and better zoos, is it necessary?  What is the purpose?  What are the drawbacks, if any?

    I think the best way this book could be read is to dip into it and read what is of interest.  A straight-through reading feels a bit like a textbook.  However, for those who want there is a good list of resources in the back, an elephant dictionary of calls, and websites for organizations that help elephants.  Kids who are interested in elephants, zoology, a career with animals, conservation, or working in zoos will like what they find here.

Enjoy!

Robin    

 

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Home School Astronomy and NASA: A Fresh Serving Every Day

     Need a place to pique your kids' interest in the stars?  Or something fun to include with your science reading?  Subscribe to Image of the Day from NASA at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/.  They will send you an email with a brief description of the photo.  We have enjoyed this for a number of months now and I can easily recommend it.  Using this as an addition to our astronomy curriculum works well and here's why.

• We check e-mail every day, so access is easy and convenient.  (Subscribing is also free.)
• The written information under each photo is clear, understandable, and meant for laypeople, making it extremely useful.
• Brief tidbits are more digestible than whole books, especially for the kids who are not already passionate about astronomy and aeronautical science.
• Their images range from star pictures to important moments in NASA history.  Viewing and reading touches on the subjects of science, history, nature study, and current events.
• We transfer each image into a folder entitled NASA which allows us to access it for review or when we need information for research or a project.

     Using this site, one learns about NASA's latest experiments, astronauts, plans for future events, details about equipment and machines used, theories about space, and questions they can't answer.  NASA is a government agency, so all their pictures are public domain and can be used in your projects or research papers.  (Just place a statement under the image "Courtesy of NASA".)

     While you can quickly subscribe to the Image of the Day, this website has many other options to browse.  Whether looking for space-related information, ideas for science projects or papers, or your student wants to follow the current news happening at NASA, this site is certainly worth a look.

Happy stargazing,

Robin

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