Nature Study Week 4: Pond

One of my goals for 2017 was to be more intentional about Nature Study for the four youngest children (5,7,9, and 11).  I want to do Nature Study once a week around a specific theme.  I remembered a friend mentioning a resource she bought at the beginning of the school year and after taking a look at it decided this might be what I needed to help make sure I actually get it done.  I bought Exploring Nature With Children , an ebook with 48 nature study ideas, a poem to go along with your theme, the name of a piece of art work to look up, books, and extension activities.  She also lists coordinating pages from Handbook of Nature Study if you have that book and are interested in looking up more information.



Our week 1 study was on the winter sky.

Week 2 was on the moon.


Week 3 was on trees.

This week's suggested nature study was on a pond.  If you had started using the book in the fall, you were supposed to go back to the same pond you visited then and take note of some of the differences.  We did not start the book until January.  We do not have a pond on our property.  There is one on the edge of our property but it is our neighbor's.  But there is a pond at the park.  We have been going to the park on Tuesday afternoons to kill time between gymnastics and dropping Nick off at youth, so instead of going straight to the play equipment we went to the pond first.

There was not any animals around at all.  We did see a couple of insects in the water but that was it!  The children tried to measure the depth of the water at the edge with a stick.  We could not walk all the way around the pond because there were other people there that were taking photographs of their children and I did not want to intrude..  But we did walk halfway around and back.  We did not remember to bring the sketch books so I took some photographs and they did some drawings the next day.  I wish that we had a microscope so we could take a look at the water on a microscope.  Maybe some day we will add one to our homeschool supplies.

I need to remember to bring my camera when we go places instead of just my phone.  Then the children can take some pictures of their own.

Happy Homeschooling!

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