homeschooling-nature-study Archives |

A Dragonfly Wonder | Homeschooling | Nature Study

June 18, 2010 By Laura 4 Comments

It’s Friday afternoon, and a beautiful summer-like day. I was doing some stuff around the house, with all of the windows open, and the kids were all playing outside, when I hear {JM}, “WOW! I just found a really BIG dragonfly! Guys, come look!”. I was chuckling at how loud he was yelling, with such enthusiasm, and wondered if the whole town might come running. I slipped on my flip-flops, sauntered out there, and saw Michael was already at the site of said-dragonfly. He said to me as I headed over, “You didn’t bring your camera?” My plan was to judge for myself, if it was camera-worthy. ; )

I took one glance, and…..Yup! It was!! I went and got the camera, hoping it wouldn’t fly away before I got back.

{JM} found it on the tree, just like this…..

It looked like it had no intention of moving, any time soon. It was huge. But I knew you wouldn’t be able to tell the scale of it, in a photo of it, on a tree.

So Michael put his big man-hand beside it….

It was 6 inches, easy, head to tail.

After I got those shots, Michael was dying to get it on his hand. He managed to very gently….

Just LOOK at the size of that thing!! It did flutter it’s wings momentarily, and it honestly sounded like a bird’s wings flapping.

Maybe it’s common, but we’ve never seen anything like it, in our lives. Have any of you New England folks ever seen one like this? Do they grow this big in other states?

If you know what kind it is, or even have a guess, please let us know!

We’ve been trying to research it, and figure out what the species is. But I haven’t yet been able to find a photo that matches it. We’d love to learn more about it.

Is it possible to have a ‘dragonfly hive’ in your yard, like some have bee hives?

THAT would be so cool, huh?

One thing is for sure: God’s work never ceases to amaze us.

BTW, yes, Michael has been painting, among 100 other projects we’ll be sharing with you soon enough.

Thanks for dropping by, and sharing in our marveling at the wonders of nature!

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Herring Run Faster Than Us – Homeschooling Field Trip

May 23, 2009 By Laura 4 Comments

We are very fortunate to live in such a beautiful, historic town, of Plymouth, MA. (Also historically known as Plimoth.) It’s scenic, almost everywhere you look, and as homeschoolers, it’s a world of education. I’ll be showing you more of these parts we live in soon, but this is one place we love to go. It’s a great place to take a long walk, completely away from any streets and traffic.

On one is the famous Jenney Grist Mill, which has a quaint tavern and ice cream shop. (At this point in time.) The mill is only turning when they are grinding corn inside, making corn meal.

Right across a drive way is a surreal little pond, that is just so quiet, it feels like it’s own little world. Quiet enough to hear the nature. It’s full of wild life to spot. There are birds in flight everywhere, and a swan couple. Fish, frogs, muskrats and turtles. There is also a bridge over it all. This is where the herring are born, and come back to in the spring to spawn, by way of the lovely brook that runs through this whole park, connecting of course, to the ocean.

The kids spotted a turtle.

Heading back the other way out behind the mill, is where you can get a good look at the herring, during the spawning time of spring. As they swim upstream, on their journey to the fresh water pond, they are abundant and easy to observe right here. Unfortunately, we were late going to take a look this year. They come through mid-April to mid-May. So they beat us this year, and had already been through, and gone, before we went to check it out this past week. We’ve been in previous years though, and it is a sight to see! Herring fish swimming and jumping on top of each other, everywhere. If you look just on the other side of the slanted stone wall in the photo above, you can see the ‘fish ladder’, that many of the fish use to help themselves along.

We spotted a few fish, but the real active season had really past.

The kids still re-read the herring information board at the location.

They really do have such an amazing life cycle.

Continuing to walk along, it is just so peaceful and serene, following the brook all of the way, and going through a couple overpass tunnels, that the kids love to make echos in. That part is less than peaceful, or serene. lol

I love this photo above. I have no idea what the interaction was about between{J} and {O}, but it just strikes me as a moment full of love and tenderness between siblings.

Just beyond this spot, continuing in the same direction, is a large park, with lots of walk ways, another quaint foot bridge, spreads of green grass, and nice little benched areas to sit.

But we headed back to the direction we came from, because it was time to go get some dinner, and we had a long walk back first. It was a nice evening for a family walk, but I was kicking myself for waiting so long to go, and missing the herring season. We’ll be back here many times before that season rolls around again, because it’s a great place to take a stroll on summer nights, and throughout the fall as well.

Next year though, we’ll be sure not to miss the herring again, and I promise to take lots of photos!!

Have you ever seen herring swimming upstream in the spring?

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{A}’s Chipmunks are Back….

March 25, 2009 By Laura 3 Comments

….and boy did they miss her!!

She got this shot with her Daddy’s point & shoot camera, as he climbed up her leg.
Is that not love or what? lol

A few other quick notes tonight:

*I am working on the baking post that’ll be up very soon, (lots of photos), but we just wanted to thank all of you who let us know we are not the only ones who are spring-less! lol.

*We also appreciate your condolences for the loss of our friend, as well as the sweet comments about our little toothless Beauty. She’ll soon have toothless company! I would love to get a shot of the 3 of them missing teeth on top.

*Also, looks like the consensus is to do progress posts of Michael’s projects…so that’s what we’ll do.
That’s easier for me to manage anyway…photo-wise.

And to Gramma–Thanks again for your ditties!! XOXO

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Hand-Taming Chipmunks – by {A}

November 16, 2008 By A 3 Comments

Hi there! If you’ve been visiting our blog from the beginning, you may have seen posts on my chipmunks troop before. If you’ve missed them and want more background, you may want to go back to here, and also here. I have hand-tamed / trained 3 of them, and am working on my fourth, named ‘Sergeant’. The one in these photos that Mama took, is ‘Chipmouse‘, which was the easiest one to train.

My family and friends call me ‘The Chipmunk Whisperer‘. Sometimes they try to whisper back!! This REALLY tickles! Look at her little paw on my ear! My Dad said she was thinking, “I wonder if I can put some seeds in here?”.

I’ve spent extra time with them in the last month or so, knowing I’ll see them a lot less over the winter. I don’t believe that they truly hibernate, but they are like the squirrels. They stay in their burrows and sleep a LOT, only waking to eat a little bit from the food the keep right next to them. Or under them. They have been known to come out some in winter on milder days to collect nuts or berries or whatever they can find.

In this photo below, she is searching for some of her favorite treats that I might have dropped. Some of the things I’ve fed her that she loves to eat are dried corn, sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, and she has taken grapes cut into quarters when we didn’t have any of the other things in stock.

Just look at how she looks up at me! I think she loves me. Sometimes she gives me little wet kisses.

I don’t have a photo of it, but I actually taught Chipmouse how to shake paws. : ) I put my finger out by her paw, and she puts her paw on top of my finger. Then I push up, and she pushes down, and I push up, and she pushes down. It’s really fun!I think in the photo below she wanted to do a double paw shake.

I also love to twirl her tail.

I really love my chipmunks. I’m glad that God allowed them to trust me.

I’ve spent a lot of time with them, so I think they will probably remember me in the springtime. Especially ‘Chipmouse’, because we’ve spent countless hours together.

I know where her burrow is, which is on our property, so when I really miss her, I can at least whisper down to her and tell her. Notice how chipmunk holes are so nice and round? That’s how you know it’s not a snake burrow!

Well I hope you enjoyed my post. I should have another coming up. I won’t tell you what it’s about so it’s a surprise. : ) Also, today we got a very early, and very, very special Christmas present! We are all over the moon and were bouncing off the walls with happiness when we opened it! (We weren’t being impatient. We were told to open it right away.) I hope Mama blogs about it, but she wants photos. Of course!!

See you later!

Whale Carcass Washes Ashore – A Spontaneous Field Trip

September 23, 2008 By Laura 1 Comment

This morning, after having had an extended weekend away, we were planning a regular school day today, with getting some our book lessons done. That is, until we woke up to helicopters, circling around and around, near our house. So my husband turned on the tv to find out what might be going on, and low and behold, there was a whale carcass washed ashore on our beach nearby. Time for a spontaneous field trip! THIS is the beauty of homeschooling!

So the kids ate breakfast, washed up and got dressed as fast as they could, and we all headed out in search of the whale. After a driving down a few side-roads that had public access ways, and checking the shore there, we finally found the spot. Except the only way down was very steep, very sandy and rocky cliff. But if you know us…..we went for it. We all made it down safely, as I wondered out loud, repeatedly, how we’d ever make it back up! But we’d figure that out later I guess. We had a dead whale to study. : )

Though it didn’t seem to be a full grown adult, it was rather impressive, nonetheless. (And seemed huge to our little kids.) It was so interesting to see all of it’s parts, up close and in person. as a whole, it was not pretty by any means!! Not anymore, anyway. Part of it was really decomposing, as it seemed to have been dead awhile, and just finally got washed ashore.

This side (photo below), was the worst. It was barely recognizable as a whale at all. And in standing on the other side, where the breeze came on off-water, the smell was intolerable. UGH! But it was this side that you could see the bones of the jaw, on the far right, as well as the eye socket. So it was fascinating, visually.

The kids enjoyed walking around it, checking it out, asking questions and stepping on it’s tail. LOL. Naturally, I was taking photos, and thinking about blogging with such yucky, yet interesting photos, about our unexpected experience. Below at this angle you can see the upper jaw bones even better, on the far left this time.

As we were looking at it, yet another couple of helicopters were flying around over head. Other people began to arrive too, and some guessed we were homeschoolers.

Once we had our fill of fascination and disgust, we decided to figure out which one of the many sets of beach access stairs, that climbed the cliff-side, were public. As we made our way down the beach, we came across a scattered intestines of the whale, here and there, that had washed up separately. (Yuck.) Once up the cliff and on our way up the road, back to our van, we saw the environmental police showing up. Marine biologists had already been there, in the earlier morning hours.

When we got home, we did some research and determined that it was a humpback whale. Later TV news reports throughout the day confirmed that. It’s not yet determined if this whale died of natural causes, or by accident due to being bumped by a ship, or caught up in fishing nets. It seems they plan to retrieve the the skeleton of the whale for museum display, and either bury the flesh, or drag it back out to sea.

It was yet another homeschooling adventure our kids were able to witness! They talked about it the rest of the day, and the little ones colored pictures of whales and other sea creatures, and recreated the scene with imaginary play. After we got all of our book lessons done of course.

….and boy did they miss her!!

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