Signs of Spring - 2008

Charlotte Mason said that once a child gets to touch, and be in touch with nature and it becomes a habit, it will be a source of delight his entire life. (Home Education, p.61) I have always believed this to be true. Nature refreshes the senses, offers quiet with no digital distractions, allows for children (and adults) to connect with God's awesome creation. It is an integral part of my children's home education, if not the cornerstone. Nature walks are the springboard for everything we do in science and yield numerous fruits (nature pun not intended.)


I am un-apologetic about autumn being my hands down favorite season for nature walks! But, spring does rival autumn in its offering of tangible beauty. Our annual signs of spring nature walk took place this year on Grandma and Grandpa's farm through which the Flint River winds. There are 120 acres of marshes and wetlands, forest, natural spring, pasture, river and beach, deer, squirrel, beaver, fox, bats, birds, and every other woodland and river creature you could imagine. The land is teeming with life, and it is springing up everywhere right now. Yesterday was the perfect day for basking in it! We finished lessons, and loaded up for the short drive over. The dogwoods are in full bloom right now.


This is a look at the Tifton Field which is a smallish field surrounded by woods on three sides, and the bottom land on one. The bottom land is the lowest point of the property, and it is through this that the Flint River cuts its way. I have always loved the Tifton Field, to me it seems enchanted as it is a tiny opening amidst the sprawling woods. Right now it is dotted with small white flowers and many wild violets. Standing in the middle of the field is glorious right now, all of the trees are in bloom and many of them are dogwoods. We found a lot of deer tracks and the children had so much fun imagining that the deer might have been startled by something and bounded away quickly by observing how deep the tracks were engraved. Magical place.


My tree-huggers :) This is the large Beech tree that Sparkly has lovingly "adopted." I asked each of the children to adopt a tree last year. Sparkly adopted this large Beech at the edge of the woods and just at the entry into the opening of the bottom land. Sweet Pea chose a large Oak tree. Since we take a lot of our nature walks here, I thought it would be fascinating to observe the same tree throughout the seasons. We have watched them for a year. Last year was challenging for all the trees here, as we had a late frost that killed all of the new spring leaves, and a record drought. Fortunately, there is a natural spring on the land that feeds the trees here and they have been spared. It is always a joy to see them spring out with new leaves.


Peanut in particular enjoyed the walk today. He had so much freedom to roam and explore. If you look beyond him through the trees, you can just make out the little spring cutting its way though the forest.


The end of our walk, and we stopped for a short water break. I thought it would be nice to have one picture of Doodlebug on the walk - she was blissfully asleep for the entire thing, but I like to think of her enjoying the sounds of the birds and the children playing. I'm sure that wires the brain!

Baby Ducks

It is beautiful and we are outside again! On one of our walks this weekend, we discovered baby ducks in the pond down the road. The children were thrilled when the ducks came waddling as fast as they could up the hill to greet them and beg for food. Obligingly, the kids trucked up the long hill to our house, grabbed handfuls of leftover bread and ran back down to the pond to feed the ducks. The ducks are adorable, and of course the first thing out of Sparkly's mouth was, "can one of them be mine?"



The grass is tall across the street from us, and it looks like praire grass when it waves in the breeze. Many killdeer call it home and nest in there we discovered. It was interesting to watch mama killdeer fuss at us as the children (unknowingly) disturbed the birds from their nesting places. We didn't see any nests though - maybe soon.

It is always such a joy to get back out in nature after the winter thaw!

The New and Improved Nature Center

I have resisted the purchase of more shelving for the learning room for some time now thinking "surely, I can make this fit somehow!" I have not been happy however with my Nature Shelf. We used to be able to fit on one shelf - one shelf! Then, I expanded over the summer to 4 shelves. It still wasn't working. It looked cluttered, and I couldn't set up our focused nature study like I wanted to. I've been trying and trying to come up with a solution all year!

I finally decided on another set of shoe organizer shelves from Target. They're actually for a closet organizer system and I discovered them when I was looking for something shallow and fairly inexpensive for my Montessori materials. They have been working perfectly for me Montessori-wise, so I bought 3 more sets for a total of $30 to use as my nature center. Why did I resist for so long? They work perfectly there, providing easy access to nature study materials and a nice visual presentation in the room!


This semester we are studying Botany as part of our broader classification studies. So all of plant life and the plant world is fair game! I set up some of my most delicious books for inspiration - The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady is always open to the month at hand for inspiration in nature sketching. It inspires me anyway!

Our studies are anchored on the set of Botany Nomenclature Cards from Montessori For Everyone. We'd love the Botany cabinet, but the 3 part cards fit into our budget better this year, and they have been working fine! We also used the plant kingdom charts to help us with the big picture as we began our studies.


Then, I round out with all of the delicious books I have on my shelves! Plenty of wonderful rabbit trails spring from this study and our reading! I'm going to add a list of all of the wonderful Plant Kingdom/Botany books in my left sidebar today. How depressing that blogger won't let me capture the enticing book covers from Amazon. But, if you're interested in what we're reading - the list will be over there.


And finally, our nature studies this winter had to include a lovely basket of our favorite bird watching supplies.

Nanny and Papa bought the Bird Identiflyer with several accompanying cards for the kids for Christmas. What a wonderful gift. They've been quizzing each other by playing the bird call, and guessing the bird. Several new calls have been memorized, and it has really enhanced our bird identification as we never listened to identify the birds before. I had to set up a basket for them! I keep it near the window in the learning room where the cardinals and chickadee's love to sit and eat their seed.

I'm anxiously awaiting my copy of Backyard Birds of Winter and Discover Nature In Winter to round out our winter nature study theme. Of course, the Bird Identiflyer isn't the only thing around here really drawing us back to the birds. Take a look at what my husband has been working on since the summer...


Our new Mary pond and waterfall is located right outside our kitchen window. In the spring, with the windows open we'll be able to hear the sound of the waterfall. In the winter, it has drawn the birds to us. It has made for great winter nature study right from our kitchen windows! We'll do some landscaping and naturalizing around the pond this spring, but for now it is such a lovely addition to the sleeping garden!