Nature Walks and Natural History Clubs

Many years ago I started a Nature Walk Club (with another mom), but (because I was new to Charlotte Mason) it didn't look very Mason like at all.  I did a lot of work ahead of time and we had many kids join that had no experience with caring for nature.   It was fun.

I always left tired.  It wasn't long before it fizzled out.  I blamed it on the weather.

Now I've taken a few years and read more and feel refreshed.

In early June,  I encouraged a few moms who have been practicing and learning about Charlotte Mason to join me and my kids on a little hike.  Then after we could journal and our kids could discover and learn with no boundaries.

There was a huge turnout.

And so we've done it again.

And we will do it again.

And with that a Natural History Club has been born.

I encourage/inspire the moms and kids to bring nature journals and everything they might need to spend lots of time in nature.  We walk together (mostly) and find interesting things to identify.  And then we spend time drawing in our nature journals (MOMS AND KIDS!).  And slow down our lives to just be present to the day.  to the nature around us.  to each other.

Have you ever been part of a nature walk/natural history club?

The value of rest

                             My view some days and evenings.  Isn't it beautiful?

Experience confirms that there must be a social re-evaluation of the mother's role, of the toil connected with it, and of the need that children have for care, love and affection in order that they may develop into responsible, morally and religiously mature and psychologically stable persons. It will redound to the credit of society to make it possible for a mother-without inhibiting her freedom, without psychological or practical discrimination, and without penalizing her as compared with other women-to devote herself to taking care of her children and educating them in accordance with their needs, which vary with age. Having to abandon these tasks in order to take up paid work outside the home is wrong from the point of view of the good of society and of the family when it contradicts or hinders these primary goals of the mission of a mother.  (Quote from JPII, Laborem Exercens)

The value of work

Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature. (Quote from JPII Laborem Exercens)

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it;

Happily pulling of the garlic mustard weeds.

Have you read the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. and their document with scripture references for the benefits of work?  Work has dignity.

a Spring walk in the woods

With a Charlotte Mason education, we spend a lot of time outside.  

We like to see what happens each season.  We found lots of spring beauties this year.  

An owl pellet

And brought it in to dissect it.

and categorize it.  

Remove the garlic mustard that wants to take over the meadow.

Find the May apples.

and just enjoy it.  

Nature Study

It's the time of year when everything is popping out and up and we have to get out there to find it!  

"As soon as he (she) is able to keep it himself (herself), a nature-diary is a source of delight to a child.  Everyday's walk gives him (her) something to enter..."  {Volume 1, p.54)

And delightful it HAS been.  

There is a nice write up in the Handbook of Nature Study about Trillium.  Several children did drawings of these.  

(did you know it's also called birthroot?)

We seem to have Prairie Trillium around here.  

"mother cannot devote herself too much to this kind of reading, not only that she may read tid-bits to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observations."  {Volume 6, page 223}

And outside we shall be.  The flowers are calling, the birds are calling.

"never be inside when you could be outside.  Spend most of the first six years of life outside.  Be outside with the children,...keep everyone in a good mood; leave the children alone most of the time; mother may train eyes, ears and also plant seeds of truth within the child.  1-2 hours of active, vigorous play, then a short lesson..." {Volume 1, Part II, p. 42}

Now you know why I am not able to answer the phone.

the babies first hike and what we found there.

Each day that we have 70 degree weather after October 15th, I ponder how important it is to get outside for HOURS....knowing that we will soon want to spend a nature hour outside instead of unlimited hours.

We are gifted to live very near a state park (only 5 minutes away).  We visit the park often.  Sometimes just our family.  Sometimes I can encourage other homeschooling families to join us.

When baby boy was only four weeks old, I was ready to start our long hikes back up again.  I wear baby in a wrap or sling so he can join us on our trips.  When the weather gets cooler, I'll just wear the wrap under my coat.

Here's us setting out on an October hike.

Baby along for the ride and a little sun on the head.  (see what four weeks looks like?)

It became apparent that our trip was to be a "mushroom" trip.  Wow there were lots of kinds.  

And there always comes a part in our walk/run that we find a place to climb.

I pose those questions.  What do you see up?  What do you see down?  

What do you smell up? down?  Hear?  

We found that those trees without leaves are bare, but are not without excitement.  We spent quite a bit of time smelling (yes, smelling) the branches of different trees.  Nice!  Have you every broken a small tree branch and smelled it?  

Book review: Nature books that we have enjoyed recently

Citizen Scientists: Be a part of scientific discovery from your own backyard by Loree Burns

wow.  This was a super neat book.  Do you know what a citizen scientist is?  In the past we have been part of bird counts, but this book opened my eyes to other opportunities you can do still from home.  Broken into four seasons of ideas you can help scientific research by tracking butterflies (did you know they actually put stickers ON butterflies?), identifying bugs and more!

The photographs in this book are wonderful!  And my kids were excited to see how other kids have done the bird count.

Do you mix poetry and science?  With Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder, I was very impressed.

 Beautiful closeup photographs follow a wonderful poem.

Step gently out.  be still and watch a single blade of grass....
the creatures shine with stardust...
in song and dance and stillness, they share the world with you.  (just a portion of this poem)

I'm inspired to take more close ups of our trips into nature.

Mushroom pickers foolproof field guide gave me delight!  I see mushrooms when we go on nature hikes, but am never sure if we could pick them and eat them.  Now I know!  I'm sad to say that we found (or rather the kids did) some large edible mushrooms late this summer.  Because I didn't have this book yet, I wasn't saddened when the kids (and the other homeschooling kids we were with) destroyed them all.  They were soccer ball sized and called giant puff-balls.  They would have been great for dinner had I known....

One Small Square series of books are very helpful for those interested in nature.  We are currently enjoying one on astronomy, but the ones on pond and woods continue to enjoyed here.

Science in your backyard as been a read aloud in our family for several years.  It's a trusty book to complete what we've found here in this great backyard of ours.  I bought it used, but have found it so filled with great helps.  Weather poems to memorize such as "red sky at morning, sailors take warning; red sky at night, sailors delight".  Because we live NOWHERE near the sea, we enjoy discovering what us landlocked people can learn from red sky!  

We've classified bugs with this book, learned how to make an astrolabe (yes go ahead and look that up!), completed backyard physics and considered winter twigs most recently.  

And now that the weather is turning and we've begun to consistently fill up the bird feeders (both in the front and back of the house), we are again reading Birds Through the Year by Gilmore.  This out of print treasure gives us a treasure trove of facts about what we can expect to see and discover as we keep our eyes to the skies.  Last week we were traveling and saw the largest flock of black birds EVER.  What a joy for the kids to see the birds and for mom to pull this book out and fill in the gaps of what we didn't know about migration of these birds. 

(go ahead click the link...it's a free B&N nook edition from the original 1923 book!  you are welcome!)

Have you found any nature books recently that you'd like to share?

What I can see in my yard this month

Cranberry Viburnum--blooming well this year after four years in this yard.

Trumpet Vine.  The hummingbirds love this.

Five leaved Ivy hiding lots of aphids

Hosta blooms

Children reading fairy books on the porch

Peach long stemmed rose

And this technically is not in my yard, but down the street at the local pond.  See the cute little frog my daughter caught?  Another homeschooling mom in the background and the rest of the kids at the edge of the lake.

It's been a good nature month.  Weather is making it easy to spend hours and hours outside without needing a dip in the water or a Popsicle.  (although we have done those things too).

Stolen Moments

This week as I drove alone with my 10 year old, we came across a field of sunflowers.

It was the kind of day in which I had been driving too much and felt overly exhausted.  It was past dinner time and she'd been at art class for nearly 3 hours with no snacks.  I knew toddler was at home

So I put aside my physical woes and stopped.

And we enjoyed.  and made memories.

Do you ever wonder what might happen if you quit enjoying the moments given you?

Book Review: The Nature Principle

Finally I have finished my book.

Today I am sitting out in the backyard.  All I can hear are Morning Doves cooing and the flutter of their wings.  The wind blowing in the nearby Maple trees and the call of the Cardinal in the Walnut tree.  Our family dog is bringing me a throwing toy and laying it at my feet.  I'm in an easy chair.  I can see my blooming roses and day lilies.  The wild purple mallow is getting tall.  The rain gauge which hasn't been dumped out in days reads 3/4 of an inch.  Now a sparrow calls to me.

Does that get you a book picture of my backyard?  Did I say that I was still in my pajamas?  and the family is all still asleep at 7:30am?  Last night was a late one watching a family movie until nearly 9pm.  This momma was up for two hours in the night with a little one who couldn't sleep from 2:30am to 4:30am. Yet my body is set to awake at 6am and so I am reveling in this quiet time.  Even all the neighbors have chosen not to mow or exit from their homes this morning.

It's wonderful here.  I hear the wren singing to it's mate.

So all this quiet afforded me the opportunity to finish this book by Richard Louv.  The first half of the book was full of statistics and research and quotes that I found very interesting.  The second half was personal visits he'd had with people who were having a positive impact on the nature movement.  This part I found less interesting....

Random notes in my book journal read: We use our senses fully when we are outdoors.  "Interruptions Science" is the new condition we have as adults.  We are not able to focus on one thing with our hand held devices calling to us constantly.  We tend to have "continuous partial attention".

Mycobaterium Vacae is a soil baterium that is commonly ingested/inhaled when working in nature. In mammal studies, it has shown an increase in learning.  (MUST GET TO GARDENING!)

Gary Small (some kind of researcher) suggests a brain gap is developing between generations due to increased technology input in his book called iBrain:surviving the technological alteration of the modern Mind.

Thoreau might have had it just right when he suggested we need the 'tonic of wilderness'.

The prefect drug substitute is Vitamin N.  Nature.

The 2008 American Journal of Preventative Medicine found the greener a neighborhood the lower the BMI of the children!  Wow.  We have a very green yard with at least two trees that I think are over 100 years old and 13 other trees some that we have planted in the last six years of living here.  I also have over 100 different kinds of perennial flowers to keep me busy and this year we planted over 40 kinds of vegetables.  There is lots of green here.  And I have five fairly skinny kids.  :)

Mental health as well as physical health are improved with increased time in nature.
We need to overcome 'place blindess' by learning the treasure of the out doors where we live.  Learn the names of the flora and fauna.  Investigate the water, the land, the trees.  I personally like this Wildflower Book for learning names.  (It's specifically for Illinois.)

As a family you can make it a goal to have the "Green Hour".  The National Wildlife Foundations recommends one hour of outdoor UNSTRUCTURED time each day.  I think this is no problem in this house.  ( I love the comment that Wii should be replaced by Whee!)

One suggestion that I just can't seem to implement that I totally agree with is getting a rain barrel! It makes so much sense especially in the spring months when we have SO MUCH RAIN.  And right now we have very little....Perhaps I will get this done in the coming months.

Create a silence sanctuary.  Not sure how to do this when you live in a neighborhood.  Now that I have been outdoors for more than an hour the weed whacker machines have come on in the neighbors lawn and there is a baby crying down the street.....

The second half of this book (as I clearly stated was less interesting to me) was full of personal stories of ways others have naturalized their places of living.  Using mirrors on sky scrapers to reflect light into shaded spots.  Ways to increase button parks (a term for neighborhood planned parks by persons not by city planners).  Nature hikes as a family and even how to create urban nature outings for families.  Hooked On Nature.  

I was appalled to read that the 2008 edition of the Oxford Jr Dictionary took out the nouns 'acorn', 'clover', 'dandelion', and 'blackberry' to name a few in order to make room for new words that children need to know such as Blackberry, blog, chat room and MP3 player!  ahh!

Just now seven Geese flew over the house!  Joy!  And I have been joined by two children outside also in their pajamas!  Double joy!

So after reading this book I reflected on my youth and the time I spent out of doors.  My parents moved farther away from the city center when I was 6 or 7 and I found myself near some woods.  These were owned by someone and perhaps were not open to children, but we discovered them none the less!  During my junior high years a highway was built right through the woods.  Unfortunately it was also the time in my life where I spent less time just discovering the woods and it wasn't so saddening to me (but it is now...).  There was a boggy swamp area near this woods that was typically full of bull frogs and I have great memories of trying to catch them.  That pond was filled in with the name of urbanization.  The rest of the woods that wasn't bulldozed down was turned into a subdivision.  I did appreciate being able to tour the homes as they were being built.  Soon became a gated community using the name of the trees that had to be taken down in order for the subdivision to be built- Thousand Oaks is the name of the subdivision.  Irony in that they cut down so many of those amazing oaks.

So I can't make a forest where the highway now stands, but I can consider ways to keep the unused land near us as open areas for my kids to discover.  There is a state park less than 5 miles away that we don't visit often enough (in my humble opinion).  But the times we do visit we just can't stay for an hour.  We enjoy our time so much when we discover the local animals and trees and natural creeks.  We laugh often as a family of the time when a child exclaimed there was a brown cow at this park as we were leaving.  It did look like the backside of a cow, but was a white tailed deer.  Now we always look for brown cows when driving in this park.

I wonder if you can increase your families unstructured time in nature (or even your own!) and reap the benefits of a healthier life.

In response to this a Cardinal landed near by and exclaimed "sweet, sweet, sweet!"

Family trips to Nature spots

I wonder if families are just not taking vacations like they used to.  I hear people talking about their fantasy trips to "lands" of magic, but I don't really hear about vacations much any more.  And I sure didn't see as many people on our recent trip.

Many of the trinket stores and souvenir shops were boarded up or closed.  Where do people take their trips to these days?  Are they just staying home?  Are they too busy working to take time to enjoy their family?  Are they single parents unable to find the way to drive cross country for a time away?

Our family took two trips all together in the last month.  Both trips included business for my husband with an extended stay of fun for the kids and I.  One or two days of daddy "working" and four to five days of playing.  What did we do?  We spend those four to five days driving to a place where we could be totally in nature.

Did you hear that?  Err Read that?  NATURE!

I think that's why we didn't see many people.  Is everyone inside on their computers?  Quick put yours down and get outside before your brain turns to mush!  (or that's usually what we say at our house when we notice the blank stares into the screens).

So we hiked and walked and discovered.  

The local flora and fauna inspired us.  

We climbed in caves and sang at the tops of mountains.

Do you get away and get outside?  If not, I hope you consider it soon!

And take advantage of the National Parks while they are still free.