By Sun and Candlelight

Spring Nature, Spring Books

Happy Wednesday, my friends! I hope your week's going well. :)

I put the learning room back together today - meaning, I moved out the "table for four" from Easter Sunday, and returned the loveseat to its rightful place. (Mama's reading chair, too.) It felt good to sweep up, sort out, and then settle things back where they belong. :)

The library corner needed to be set up again, so I retired the "March" books and set out the April nature-related books. Our theme this month is "our marvelous earth."

The books you see above are as follows:

Little Farm by the Sea

Grow It, Cook It

Wildlife Gardening

Recycle!

Compost!

Miss Rumphius

The Golden Guide to Endangered Animals

A Guide to Northeastern Butterflies

Respect the Earth Flashcards

Mother Earth's Children

The Nature Connection

First Nature Encylopedia

Whoever You Are

This Year's Garden

Wonders of Nature 

 Naturally Fun Parties for Kids (I just got this book the other day and Earlybird is enthralled! I can hardly get it back in "my" pile, lol.)

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Now, yesterday we met up with some of our homeschooling friends and took our kids on an informal nature walk. ("Informal" in that, the parents walked and talked - the kids mostly ran ahead.) I provided a "scavenger" list of things for the kids to look for at this time of year, and I'd like to share it here with you all in case it might be something you can use. :)

Take a look around and see what you can find ... use all your senses to “Search for Spring!”

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signs of nest building

buds

a spring flower

three shades of green

a fresh smell

mud

tracks in mud

a new bird sound

an early spring insect

a fiddlehead (young fern)

a migrant bird

an amphibian or reptile

earthworms

running, dripping or trickling water

a cold spot

a warm spot

something red

something yellow

something blue

something purple

something that has more than 3 colors

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Have fun, and remember to be gentle with Nature!

I hope this list might inspire you and your kids to go outside and "search for spring." We had a lot of fun finding it for ourselves!

:)

Have a wonderful evening, my friends ... I will see you here again very soon!

Labor Day Nature Walk

Labor Day ushers in some of the nicest weather we'll see all year. There's a hint of fall in the air (and the landscape), but still much light and warmth to enjoy.

Earlybird and I took an impromptu nature walk during a cookout this weekend at my folks'. Here are our pictures - a little September sampler. :)

He's hard to see, but there's a super-huge crow in the distant background (to the left of the gazebo). He was making quite a racket before we even entered the backyard. Crows, crickets and cicadas ~ the late summer trio.

 

These tree stumps were covered with the most interesting mushrooms!

Some big, some tiny ...

Lots of milkweed - delicious food for the Monarchs in migration. (They'll be fun and fluffy in another few weeks ...)

Prickly, purple thistle.

 Such an interesting shape!

Goldenrod ... I absolutely love it. Its mid-August appearance is the first sign that summer is waning.

And the tangly, pretty jewelweed, another childhood favorite. (I remember "popping" the swollen seed pods when I was a kid.)

A strange tree growing at the edge of the property. It had all these long green-bean like pods dangling from its branches!

And finally, another late summer friend ~ the grasshopper:

He let us take plenty of pictures before leaping into the spirea bush!

I'm glad we got this walk in since we've had raw, rainy weather ever since. I had lots of outdoor activities planned for this week ("farm chores," etc.) but instead we've been indoors, settling back into a "schoolday" routine and enjoying the cozy corners of our new learning room ...

I hope you're all having a good week. I will be back here again just as soon as I can.

:)

An Early Spring Nature Walk

Well, thankfully all the snow is gone, but it still looks pretty much like Winter out there. If we look (and listen) closely, though, there are hints of Spring all over the place. I led the boys on our first "official" nature walk of the new year last week. Our mission: to look for as many signs of new life as we could ...

Crackerjack found a neat rock by the vernal pool. It went right into his collection bag.

We spotted vibrant green moss ...

And a surprising amount of ferns ...

Lots of skunk cabbage popping up along the riverbanks ...

I have no idea what this is, but it was neat to see something blooming!

This is a huge evergreen that fell straight across the river. Don't think it escaped my kids' attention it would make a perfect bridge.

Some kind of fungus growing on a fallen tree.

I love the way some things blush red before they turn green ...

This is "our" vernal pool - it's located just a bit further than a stone's throw behind our backyard. Very soon we'll start hearing peepers at night.

This garter snake was a really neat surprise! These harmless creatures hibernate through winter, so seeing them out and about again is a sure sign of spring! 

So in the end, it was a more interesting walk than I thought it would be! Our plan is to take Friday nature walks every week we can.

Now, this is a terrible picture, but it's very meaningful to me. First of all, look at all those knobby little leaf buds! But even more exciting - see the little black birds dotting the branches? These are red-winged blackbirds - we had a huge flock of them descend on our neighborhood recently. They make quite a racket (they sound like squeaky gates) and startle at the slightest sound or activity. They return every spring and when they arrive we know winter is over.

These next two pictures are from Saturday morning. We noticed some very large birds circling our street and luckily they perched right on top of our neighbor's chimney. Bookworm took these pictures:

They are turkey vultures! And we're pretty sure this is courting behavior.

And finally, just look who we saw strolling down our street this morning!

Not to be confused with the aforementioned turkey vultures, this is a real honest-to-goodness wild turkey! I was just stepping out to get the morning paper, when I saw this handsome fella strutting past my neighbor's house just as casual as you please.

You just never know when you might have a neat nature moment!

Well, thanks so much for stopping by today - I hope your week's off to a good start. We're expecting a very mild, rainy day here - we might even hear a rumble of thunder! After the rain passes through, the rest of the week looks pretty sunny and mild - so there will surely be even more to see on our next nature walk!

Have a great day, my friends ~ see you all again very soon ...

:)