Jimmie's Collage » nature study

Nature in Your Notebook Free Printables

Jimmie — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Cycles of Nature Notebooking Pages - Record keeping printables for recording seasonal observations. Special nature logs for clouds, flowers, birds.

Snow is a pretty exciting thing in Memphis just because it is so rare. This winter, although being exceptionally mild, has given us two short episodes of snow (but no accumulation). You can be sure that when it snows, we pull out the nature notebook and document it! Here is our First and Last Snow page. We record the incidents in between the first and last, of course, because we never know when the last one will occur. The idea is that next winter we can compare and see if the snow comes earlier or later.

Modern man has sadly lost his connection to the patterns of nature, and keeping a nature journal like this one helps us to keep in touch with the wonders of our seasons. When our daffodils started blooming, we put that in the notebook, too! Although I am sure it is happening much earlier than it happened last year, I didn’t document it in 2010, so I have no data to confirm my suspicion. Next year, though, we will have the data, recorded by Sprite herself!

A great project to go along with recording seasonal changes would be to take a photograph of the same tree during each season or even once a month. Put the photos side by side and notice the drastic changes. It’s not too late to start. Do it today. BrainInTrainin shows the results of a year long project with following six different trees through the four seasons. Her photos will inspire you!

I have made these nature journal pages available as a free download to my readers. Get your free Cycles of Nature Notebooking Pages here.

But wait! There’s more! This is a group project, and there are five additional bloggers who are blogging about Nature in Your Notebook and offering free printables:

Cindy from Our Journey Westward
Maureen from Spell Outloud
Lauren from Mama’s Learning Corner
Amanda from Hearts and Trees
Barb from Handbook of Nature Study

We have also started a special Pinterest board called Nature Study Homeschool Coop. Feel free to follow the board for nature inspiration all year long.

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Free Nature Planning Pages and a Survey for My Readers

Jimmie — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:10:28 +0000

planting sycamore seedlings

I am curious about you, my readers.

I have over one thousand subscribers, and I want to know more about each of you. So would you please take my survey and let me know more about you, your homeschool situation, and what you like to read at Jimmie’s Collage? All of your responses are confidential, by the way, so please feel free to answer honestly.

As a thank you for your time, after you complete the survey, you will see a link to free nature study printables for your mom notebook.

With beautiful fall weather peeking around the corner, I’m getting excited about nature study again. (Are you?) We have had about a dozen hummingbirds in our backyard for the last week, and we’ve spent many hours watching their antics.

With the hummingbirds, I am again impressed by the good sense of Charlotte Mason’s good advice to let children learn through direct observation.

Children should be encouraged to watch, patiently and quietly, until they learn something of the habits and history of bee, ant, wasp, spider, hairy caterpillar, dragon-fly, and whatever of larger growth comes in their way.
(Vol 1, II, Out-Of-Door Life For The Children, p.57 )

After Sprite had observed and sketched the birds for an extended period of time, I read her the hummingbird pages from the Handbook of Nature Study. Although she did learn a few new tidbits, much of the hummingbird behavior she had already seen first-hand. (We would love to see a hummingbird nest like this woman did, but they are probably high up in the large trees in our yard.)

cicada exoskeleton on a tree trunk

Back to the survey and your free gift. . . one page is designed for your year-long plan with room for all twelve months.

Three additional pages are for your monthly plans. You can use them for planning your nature walks or for recording what you did after the fact. To be honest, I’m not much of a nature study planner. We simply keep our eyes open to study whatever catches our eye during that season whether it is backyard birds, insects, or squirrels.

Click on the thumbnails to go directly to the survey where you will find the link to the nature pages.

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Our Results for the Backyard Bird Count 2011

Jimmie — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:14:15 +0000

Call me a nerd, but I thought being part of the Great Backyard Bird Count of 2011 was really exciting!

Besides my previous preparations, I spent my Groupon at Barnes and Noble on another bird field guide. And I put up a second bird feeder.

Birding Checklist

Over the four day event, we had data for three different birding episodes. I watched birds by myself on two days and with Sprite one day. I wrote down my starting times on my checklist and was surprised when I went back inside to see that 30 – 45 minutes had passed. Sitting quietly, counting birds was so relaxing that I was unaware of the passage of time. (What a great stress relief activity!)

Sprite served as our data entry operator to contribute our data to the larger whole via the online report form. The website also gives you a report which you can print. Perfect for the nature journal!

We saw a total of fourteen different birds. Highest bird count goes to these birds:

1st place –common grackle
2nd place –dark eyed junco
3rd place, tied –robin, goldfinch, mourning dove, cardinal

We both found it fascinating to compare our birds with those most commonly seen in our area (according to the data uploaded to date). There were birds listed there that we have no idea about. So there is much more to study.

The checklist I designed worked out perfectly for recording the bird sightings and keeping each episode distinct. I am thinking about continuing this birding habit as part of our nature studies. I wonder if different birds will come at different seasons?

Did you do any birding for the Great Backyard Bird Count? How did it go?

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More Bird Resources for Backyard Bird Count

Jimmie — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 03:24:13 +0000

Tufted Titmouse, one of my favorite backyard birds

Update! I made an

online Backyard bird identification quiz.

Test yourself!

I am so excited about the Great Backyard Bird Count! I’ve been studying the birds in our backyard every day to identify which types we have. I’ve seen as many as 12 different birds in a single day.

Since I last posted, I found an excellent site that gives the 50 most common birds in each state of America –Nifty Fifty State Bird Guides.

To help Sprite learn the birds, I created some flashcards with the most commonly seen birds of our area (west TN) plus a few extras to round out the set. (Depending on where you live, this set may not be suitable for your own backyard.)

And for the big count days, I made a checklist with thumbnails.

The Printables

Backyard Birds Checklist - Keep track of the birds you spot in your backyard with this checklist of 18 common TN birds. Full color thumbnails are included. with 18 common birds.
Backyard Birds Flashcards - Eighteen common backyard birds of TN in flashcard format. with (the same) 18 common birds.

I hope that these printables help you for the big weekend.

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2011 Great Backyard Bird Count

Jimmie — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:00:00 +0000

February 18-21, 2011 is the Great Backyard Bird Count. We are going to participate, are you?

In preparation for the big weekend, we have

hung up a birdfeeder
ordered binoculars
looked through our bird guide to identify the birds that are already coming to our backyard
printed a Tally Sheet

The Great Backyard Bird Count Website has lots of helpful information such as Tricky IDs, Bird Feeding Tips, and buttons for spreading the word.

For more bird helps

1. Barb’s Outdoor Challenges

2. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (Their excellent coloring book is free!)

3. A huge list of free, public domain bird books at Fisher Academy.

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Polliwogs

Jimmie — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:40:01 +0000

Too busy enjoying life to blog life. (I’ve got a TON of drafts that need polishing to publish, but it’s spring. So please forgive me. I’m like a bear coming out of hibernation. Fresh air to breathe! Sunshine to absorb! Friends to meet!)

I did find a quick post that requires little work on my part. God did the amazing parts and should get full credit.

Mr. Oreo is as fascinated as we are.

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River Rocks

Jimmie — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:28:34 +0000

Sprite and I have a new hobby.

We are amassing a collection of river rocks. We spend hours on the shores of the river, washing rocks and evaluating their charms — an interesting shape, beautiful colors, a smooth texture.

Then we look through them one more time to make sure they are worth carrying all the way up the bank and back home.

When we get home, we wash them properly, allow them to dry and spray them with clear paint to make them look just like they look when wet. It’s such a simple hobby. We feel like we’re finding treasures for free on the ground. You just never know what the next rock will look like. It’s actually a popular hobby where we live, here along the Yangtze River. Some rocks are quite amazing and sell for equally amazing prices. Of course, we don’t look to get rich except in enjoying God’s creation among the river rocks.

We both think that it’s a true gift to be able to get so much joy from such an ordinary thing — a rock.

This rock below is one of my favorites. This spotted texture is called “grape stone” in Chinese. They are somewhat rare and rock collectors love them.

We are trying to come up with ways to display our rocks so we can enjoy them frequently. Here is one idea:

If you have other rock display ideas, please let me know. We are starting to get quite a collection.

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Countryside River Nature Study

Jimmie — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:15:02 +0000

We seem to be feast or famine when it comes to nature study, and I’ve come to accept that. When the opportunity to explore nature arises, we take it wholeheartedly. (Likewise, when the chances aren’t there, I refuse to feel guilt about it. ) So the weekly nature study hasn’t been our norm even though I love the concept. If we lived in a rural area, I think it would happen, but urban life honestly makes nature study more challenging.

During our overnight stay in the countryside, our friend took us to the river to find crabs. We didn’t find any crabs, but on our two hour walk each way, we had plenty of other nature finds!

We mostly walked through farmer’s fields like these.

But of course, we walked on the paths that keep you out of the paddies. We still ended up quite muddy, though. But that’s part of the charm of a nature walk.

Everywhere were ducks! And later we understood why.

We had seen these red balls at the riverbank near our home, but we couldn’t figure out what they were. Our friend told us they were snail eggs.

Once we started looking, we saw snails everywhere — small ones and huge ones.

After doing some research online, I realized why the ducks were in all the rice fields. They eat the snails! Too many snails can ruin the rice crop, but the ducks keep them at bay. (And people eat the large snails.)

A puppy followed us until we had to wade through water. Then he went back home.

We picked tangerines on the way for snacks. (Our friend told us which trees were his friends’ trees.)

We passed country homes and barns.

Finally we went down to the river bank and crossed over a grassy area with some pools of water. (It was basically a river’s equivalent of tide pools.) We ended up just taking off our socks and shoes and wading through the cold water. It was quite exhilarating.

This water buffalo chased us until it reached the end of its tether. Thank goodness we all got away! It was pretty scary, but of course made for lots of joking and brave stories later.

Wildlife was abundant — goats out to graze, a crayfish,

a strange insect among the river rocks, and birds flying in perfect formation.

We stood watching this dredging operation for quite a long time. The machines were picking up river stones from the riverbed and sorting them by size.

We caught a tiny catfish and even managed to get him all the way home. After keeping him for two days, we set it free in the little pond area in our own apartment complex. The Handbook of Nature Study calls this fish a bullhead fish.

Here is the nature journal page about the snails and their eggs.

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A Beetle and a Boatride

Jimmie — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:00:48 +0000

We recently took a ride in a boat somewhat like this. A woman paddled at the rear.

It was quiet and green: two of my favorite sensations.

We saw a monk paddling a smaller boat to his temple. My husband asked him to show us some kung fu. The monk, a young boy in his teens, responded calmly, “Kung fu is not meant for performances.” (Yeah, tell that to Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee!)

I forgot the bug repellent, and we were almost miserable with itchy legs and arms. But one bug caught our fancy. Partway on the trip, we stopped for a “shopping opportunity” where we bought this fellow for 1 RMB.

The bottom section of his leg had been snapped off and this stick was glued there instead. (Yes, that made us very sad.)

The idea is that when the beetle flies to escape, he merely spins in circles. So you’ve got a little pet on a stick.

Quite fascinating to watch, but we pitied the poor thing and set it free.

Where bad beetles end up — in the snack bowl. You could buy a pet beetle or a beetle snack. A local man ate one just to show me how to do it. He bit off the body portion and discarded the head. He said it was tasty. I chose to take his word for it. We didn’t buy any beetle snacks.

NaturExplorers at Shining Dawn Books

Jimmie — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:31:04 +0000

Shining Dawn Books has 3 new units and a contest!

Butterflies Flutter By- A unit packed full of caterpillar and butterfly information and activities.
Constant Conifers – A unit that takes you on an in-depth tour of the amazing conifer plant.
Fruits and Nuts – A unit that opens your eyes to the wonderfully varied and interesting world of edible and inedible fruits and nuts.

Enter to win by Sunday, August 16th.

These are quality unit studies, folks! I’ve used the erosion one and was most impressed.

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