We once again started our tree study!

This is our sycamore tree that greets us at the gate. I don't know why but I will have to say it is the favorite tree in the yard! I had the kids go out one day and do a drawing of the tree. I told them to look at the colors and the leaves falling and think about how the tree is changing for the season. The next day they went out and drew a leaf. Again being told to look at the colors and the details. I think my kids are not all ready for that kind of drawing because the idea of what I thought they would do and what they did was wayyyy different. Then I decided that it won't be fun for them if I push so I am just following their lead on this one and letting it be fun!!

A very pretty leaf Skyler brought in. She always brings me nature for inside she says!

Skeletons from an owl pellet!

This fit so well with our science this week on bones. It was a way to throw in some nature study in a sense. They were pretty thrilled with it! These came from Amazon there are three different ones. damian did the starling bird, Fox the mole and Skyler the vole. She loves anything mouse like! I am sure they would be way grosser to do the ones you find outside. My kids did search our barn though of course!!

 I will say there was no way my kids or me for that matter had the patience to put te skeletons together though. I am kinda glad I couldn't imagine that! They did have fun with them and liked picking out different bones comparing them to our skeletons.

After they were done I put the bones in muffin cups and bagged them to hang in our nature area!! The kids thought it cool to have skeletons hanging on their wall.

Hunting For Fall

The children and I decided to hunt for Fall by doing a Fall scavenger hunt at the park. Right off the bat we could see the first most well known sign of course LEAVES!!! Leaves everywhere and different colored at that!

While it has been cold in the mornings the afternoons have still been warm. I love this time not too hot not too cold. It is perfect outside weather. My kids and I all hate heat so in summer we are in alot lol. We were hunting for moss covered sticks, pinecones, fallen seeds and nuts anything that signals Fall has come.


I absolutely love the picture of the three of them in the river! They were so sweet crossing putting Skyler Bay in the middle in case she needed help. They can be be so sweet at times.

We also saw squirrels gathering nuts but they were not exactly posing for the camera today. We found plenty of holes and burrows and thought about all the different animals that could be living there. Of course according to Skyler the homes were all for rabbits. We tried really hard to find an abandoned nest but for some reason we just couldn't, which is pretty weird as we always find one this time of year.




They really liked all the pieces of branches that were covered in moss as well as the bracken mushrooms. My kids have a thing for bracken mushrooms. They call them steps for the animals to climb.

Well we gathered up all the goodies we found and made a We Found Fall Centerpiece for our dining room table, Skyler was in awe of the teeny tiny pinecone we found. Last year it was all about who could find the biggest this year it was all about tiny. I am sure as the season goes on they will add to this. They love finding treasures outside and displaying them. For more pics of our fun walk you can go here.

Some nature added in our week (week 3 of school)

I would like to say up front this is not my picture! I found it on google images. My son brought a little guy just like this and put him in the butterfly habitat well, our day went on and that evening when we were going to take a picture and let him go he had already decided to turn into a cocoon!! I searched him and found he is a Agraulis vanillae. You can find more about him here.  I will say the cocoon looks very odd but just like the information pictures so that must be a normal thing.

They are finally butterflies!!

Sadly not a great picture! These guys were just not cooperating well. They kept flapping those wings so everything is a huge blur. They are monarchs in case you didn't know. They were really friendly even letting the kids pick them up and everything but they just would not be still enough for a clear picture. As always the kids loved doing it and the next day they all flew to freedom. As soon as they were let go Fox and Skyler Bay both said, "mom when can we do it again"? They really love this!!

We are raising caterpillats!

For my daughters birthday a wonderful homeschool mom sent her a butterfly habitat and a few days ago our caterpillars arrived! As you can see they were allready pretty big when they got here.

Today they have already spun into their cocoons. So we had to transfer them to the habitat. We have done this several times before and my kids still love it! They are just amazed that they spin and come out something totally different.

They have been put in their little habitat and the kids will start counting down until they see butterflies!

More Irony from Mother Nature

So the mouse was gone!! It is celebration time of course. My evil cat did his job and I was free to return all the silverwear to the drawers. I was happy. I guess Mother Nature decided that I had to pay for the crime of offing one of her creatures. As if my guilt was not enough or somethng right? I don't like hurting anything but I can't stand the creatures in my house free ya know. About four something this morning a little of baby mice ran into my schoolroom squeaking for their mother as loud as possible. Little bitty things that didn't know not to run right to my cat. He got 4 and the boys rescued these....

So I am guessing since my cat took out their mother I now have these little guys to tend too. They are cute. My children are in love with them. That is irony for you. My "baby" killed their mom so now I have her babies. I buy traps so my cat finally gets the mouse. Oh well what can you do really?

Irony...

When your cat catches a caught mouse! The cats are not doing their job so to speak so you guy buy some traps because you see your awesome mouser is failing miserably at this mouse. You buy traps and Nope nothing. Can't catch anything with those either. Finally you get some glue traps. Yes they are not the best thing but neither is having mice roaming free in your house either. Can we say gross. As a child I had pet mice they lived in cages and I played with them. I have great memories of these pets. But not as these icky things using my silverwear drawers as a restroom GRRRRRRR! Well onto the glue traps. My parents also gave me some huges rat sized things as well. These suckers are like 3 glue traps in one. They are huge.

I guess my cat was a bit angry these things replacing him and all. See I have an evil cat, his name is Hush. He is not social, hates children and most everyone else as well. So he is not prejudice he hates us all equally. He is a wonderful mouser. The best so I figured this mouse must be the mouse king or something to get away this long. So on with the catching a caught mouse....

I was just rudely woke up to what I was positive was the noisiest intruder possible I heard chairs being tossed over, crashing noises LOUD! I was walking through a dark house armed with my cell and a can of pepper spray to find my evil cat Howling at the top of his lungs thrashing all over my school room. You would have thought a herd of wild animals was in there. It took me a second to figure out what was going on, Evil caught a mouse!! Note to Evil don't catch mice on glue traps Yeah evil cat, mouse, glue trap use your imagination.

He hissed and yowled like a crazed animal. It was on the bottom of all his paws stuck up the side of one leg. I finally got it off with said mouse attatched. The cat hissed and tried to smack me. He has walked around all day hissing at everyone and you hear the sticky sound with every step he takes. I love my animals and am glad to know that he can open drawers which is where the trap had been.

Damian planted some sunflowers

Damian got a really cute little sunflower greenhouse set up from one of his travelers so today we put it all together! He was very sweet letting the other kids help with putting the seeds in. When they were done it found a home on the top shelf in the nature area.

Nature up close and personal

Today we visited a family run zoo and rescue. It was small but sweet. The kids got to see interesting animals but te best part was the end. My son Fox got to hold a baby fox. It was amazing to see that. Damian and Skyler got to play with and pet a baby deer. Sky cried all the way home for that little deer.

The best part for me besides seeing the kids so happy was this beauty. She is almost a year old and full blooded timberwolf. She is also up for adoption. Look at her, isn't she beautiful and magnificent? I can truly see owning this girl if I could afford to feed her that is. We also wanted to bring home the baby fox sadly he was not up for adoption. All in all it was a great little trip to an out of the way place.

The Nature Book For Our Travelers

For the cover we used a flower my son is holding. This is a little book we have made for our traveler friends for geography. You can see that blog here. We used things from our yard and things we gathered to make a little nature book. The pages are made from baggies and include leaves, bark rubbings some sand etc. The kids liked gathering things for these and enjoyed putting them together. We have had alot of fun with our travelers and enjoying sharing the nature of our area with them.  

A little nature project for our geography swaps.

This was a little nature idea to add to our geography swaps. You can check all that out on our travelin blog. We are taking different stuff, putting them into baggies with labels and are turning them into little books for our swap partners. Kids will enjoy making this and hopefully the person who gets them likes them too.

How Old Is That Tree Mommy????

They have slowly turned the outside table into their display area for all their finds. I have cow bones, bracken mushrooms that are white which we have never seen before. Bird feeders and thanks to the nice Lowe's guy we have tree cut offs. Thought it be a nice time to show them how to count the rings. Since this pic was taken I have an almost complete spinal cord, legs, and skull from a deer. They begged to bring home the dead owl but I was too scared of what it would attract as it was all meaty and not bone. We also found a dead alligator they wanted to drag outta the river and put on the porch. I can't even say, oh well that is a boy for ya cause my little Princess Skyler came away in tears at leaving that gator!!! I just hope everyone who reads this knows my children are BIG TIME animal lovers and would never even harm a bug. They love dead things though. They love bones and guts and anything like that. They feel sad for any animal that has died and I used to have to bury everything. I stress everything including the 23 tadpoles that died one year. I have buried fish, crabs, little birds we found etc etc. They outgrew that but they loves to see bones and all. They love to see how it all works I guess. Curiosity is a good thing! Maybe I will raise a few doctors or vets!!

Winter Wednesday Challenge #1 Color Walk

Well I bought the new Ebook over at Handbook of nature Study Blog and it is really cute. I have never used any of the outdoor challenge books before so this is neat. It is also comes with cute little notebooking pages and ALOT of links!! So the first challenge was basically finding color on a nature walk so that is what we did. We went to our favorite park and just looked all over. Living in FL is not really a wintery state though. We are in North FL so we get cold just no snow. We did have frost a few mornings but me being an anti cold person, we hibernate when it gets frosty lol. I hate snow, I hatye cold and I think I have raised my kids the same. Most of the trees here have pretty much gotten bare except the pine trees and evergreen types. We did however find actual color besides piles of dead leaves and browned grass.






 The lonely red leaf. We saw some leaves most brown and dead but a few still had pretty colors. We also noticed the moss growing on trees was a bright bright green color now. The river water has turned a yellow brown type color,



This bright red bloom was an awesome find. Not quite sure what it is, but it was pretty. We found a whole bush full of them!!! Right above this we also found a long abandoned birds nest which my kids love for some reason. We have always loved finding any kinds of nests. If they are on the ground I will let them bring them home but if they are still in the tree I say leave them cause in the Spring another bird can use it as a home and we can visit again.  

These were on sandbags under the bridge. The kids wanted to break them off but they kept falling apart so we left them there. Maybe another bug will live in them.

 We had a really nice day hunting for colors. The kids were kinda sad about not having snow but I reminded them that in snow we can't ride bikes so they felt a bit better on that lol.

Of course we saw the sky which was a pretty blue that day.