Thanks everyone for sharing all your ideas.
I’m finding John Muir Laws very helpful – I’m getting the visual of what this can look like & want to show it to my boys. I think it will help them.
Winter is just a lot harder to be inspired to keep up the nature studies. We have lots of sky, lots of wind, lots of wide open places that in just a few months will be covered all in white. Even our yard most often is knee deep in snow.
Karen, your ideas are good….. We’ve had a bird feeder for years. My one son has learned a lot. We’ve learned…. we just don’t express that in journaling. In the past, we’ve had a hawk that would hang around in the late winter months & has snatched more than one bird near our feeder. That was quite distressing to see. And yes, we have a shrub nearby the birds can fly to for shelter. I’m sure there’s plenty yet to learn, but bird watching has gotten a bit……normal, would like to move on, kind of thing, during the winter months.
The children tried one year to catch some snowflakes on a black mitten & tried using a magnifying glass. The snow melted before much could be done. Microscopes, magnifying glasses & such would have to be right handy & we don’t have the space for that to happen. The kids found it hard it catch the flakes as well. We don’t very often get the nice lazy falling snow and will most often be the tiny stuff blowing sideways.
We live in a small town and very rarely get any tracks in our yard other than the neighbors dogs or the cats. Or if there had been any other tracks, the wind blows them over with snow.
I have one houseplant, and to be quite honest, I’m not all that curious about the thing. It was given to me. We did search how to take care of it but it’s not really getting enough light and I don’t have a better place to put it. I don’t have room to grow houseplants or vegetables. I tried vegetables this year but they weren’t getting enough light & I couldn’t do the artificial lighting for lack of space.
They’ve learned what certain clouds are & what kind of weather they are likely to bring…. they’re outdoors a lot & they’ve learned a lot. I find that they already know things when I do find something to point out or more likely, when THEY bring me something & proceed to tell something about it. I know they’re out there & observing. We see lots of stars at night.. They’ve stayed out at night looking at the stars. The boys have taken Astronomy. They can point out the planet(s) & the constellations that are visible.
It just seems a bit much as to how to get it down in writing or drawing. I’m going to be looking more into the resources from John Muir Laws.
