Pine Villages

Oh, what a wonderful afternoon we've had. I love that the weather is finally allowing us to be outside to rediscover God's beautiful creation. I heard the man mowing our "back-back" earlier this morning and I knew we'd be going out later in the day. There is still an ever so slight chill in the air yet considering what we have to look forward too (the blistering heat of 100+ degree weather in the summer) I wasn't upset at all.

We were last out in our "back-back" (the area beyond our backyard for those new to us) right after the snow. That was about a month ago. Since then it's been cold, wet, and rainy. Yuck! But slowly the Winter is making way for Spring and today we were able to do our first nature study of the year.

I gave the children their very own notebook for nature study. They LOVED them. Now, when I say notebook I mean a spiral wide ruled notebook that I picked up at Wal-Mart a couple of years ago for 5 cents each! They've been sitting on the top of a shelf ever since and to see the reaction from the kids you would have thought they'd been laced with gold (or candy). I even gave dd2 one. She likes to be a part of our school and thinks she's as big as the others.

We went out and I asked them to pick their favorite part of the area and draw a picture of it. I also asked dd7 to write about it. This is their notebook and I'm not going to be correcting it or grading it. All of my ideas on nature study are from the Outdoor Hour by the way.

Dd7 drew a picture and chose to write about the "Pine Village" that they've discovered. We have a lot of trees in our back yet right now there are none with leaves on them. This causes our "Pine Village" to really stick out. There is a group of 6 pine trees all clustered together amidst the other dead looking trees. We were able to discuss evergreen trees and look at the leaves/needles and even smell the trees. Oh, they smell great. She also wrote about some of the birds that she saw and was very good at describing them.

Dd5 drew a pine tree and he also drew a picture of some of the birds that he heard. I thought this was neat. He heard the sounds of two different types of birds and though he couldn't SEE them he drew what he thought they might look like. He's still too young to write words so he chose this way to express his thoughts.

Dd2...well...she drew lots of circles. That's her new talent of the month! It's precious though b/c she pretends to be drawing all sorts of other things yet everything is squiggly lines and circles. I love it! She really loves being involved.

"Nature-study cultivates the child's imagination, since there are so many wonderful and true stories that he may read with his own eyes; at the same time nature-study cultivates in him a perception and a regard for what is true, and the power to express it. All things seem possible in nature; yet this seeming is always guarded by the eager quest of what is true. Perhaps half the falsehood in the world is due to lack of power to detect the truth and to express it." (Handbook of Nature Study pg 1)

Jill