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The LEarning Never Stops photo challenge is up until Sunday night, 10 p.m.

I hope you join us! Please remember to visit at least 3 other entries, and if you do any edits, we would love to hear what you did and how.

Winners will be announced Tuesday night.

Labels: Lens, nature

Labels: nature

Exciting times at the bird-feeders outside our window; we have two outside our big front window- this one here is technically a squirrel feeder. I placed it in the backyard to bribe the squirrels to leave my bird-feeders alone. So far we have mixed results...

Seen here are my favorites, a pair of band-tailed pigeons. Seldom seen in the city, they are larger then regular pigeons and have yellow feet, not pink. A royal class of pigeons.



This bird was very exciting- and hard to catch a photo of... it's a male black-headed Grosbeak.













This one is maybe the female Black-headed Grosbeak... Mrs. Wonderful Neighbor told us what bird it was ( I run to her to show her my pictures in my digital camera because to me the birds always look like 5 other birds in the bird book) but now we are debating if that was what she said, I thought she said it was another type of grosbeak...though good luck remembering which.
We were pretty excited about this one, too- it looked like a sparrow on steriods.



Last but not least....

well, she thinks she's pretty special...










Bird books that are helpful; The Burgess Bird book - a favorite Charlotte Mason resource,
Kaufman Birds of North America,
Stoke's backyard birdfeeders guide

Labels: nature

I just love it when learning comes as easily as breathing. Yesterday, the whole family was out in the street, playing football with the neighborhood kids...when I looked behind me and saw a small swarm of bees in our yard. I gathered the kids to make a run for the neighbor's house across the street...but we noticed the swarm move to the corner of our yard and get smaller.
It was a spring-time swarm looking for a new home, and they picked our fence. The first photo most of the bees are inside the rock column, but you get the idea...





Today, as we loaded up the van to head to the library, my 3 youngest students began asking all manner of questions about bees. I picked out several books on bees of course, and a dvd. I think we have our science for the month decided on...

So far, we have Bees (under the microscope),
Honey in a Hive, and Time for kids-Bees!

Labels: homeschool, nature, reading basket

Labels: nature, Wordless Wednesday

This looked like a lot of fun...



watch the video, it is really well done, and a fun prank...

Dawn over at By Sun and Candlelight did a post on her bird feeders, it was inspirational- they are very much into bird watching at their house, and she gives some tips on how to attract birds to your yard. Makes me itch to go fill up our feeders, which I have sadly neglected.

I found this post on Tips for using the Handbook of Nature Study... Which is a book I have, ( a really neat old copy of) but I don't get it out very often. This Handbook is a Charlotte Mason favorite, go check out this post and blogsite, it may inspire you to get your handbook out, or at least inspire you to go for a nature walk.

Labels: Charlotte Mason, nature

Dawn, over at By Sun and Candlelight wrote up this book recommend on a Cynthia Rylant book. We really loved Cynthia Rylant's "Mr Putty and Tabby" series- really a sweet read for beginner readers. Anyways, this new book is about a red squirrel- and we like squirrels. -at least so far, they just moved onto our street about a year ago, so for now they are still a new treat! Dawn gives some good links on squirrels and even one with photos of a drey. If you don't know what that is, go on over and see... I have Dawn on my bloglines list, she is very crafty and very into nature, she inspires me to get outside and do more.

Labels: nature, reading basket

We have a regular visitor to our yard, we've named him squirrel Nutkin, because he had a rather nasty encounter with our cat and lost part of his tail. After it happened, I was so afraid he had crawled away to die somewhere and I kept watching for a tail-less squirrel. I think this is the one, his tail is much less "plume-y" then the other squirrels...

Here is Nutkin at the squirrel feeder we put up to hopefully save our bird feeders for the ..birds.

Today we spotted Nutkin perched on one of our sunflowers, eating the seeds. Exactly what we had in mind for those...

"But Nutkin was excessively impertinent in his manners. ...Nutkin danced up and down like a sunbeam; ...This looks like the end of the story, but it isn't...Nutkin pulled so very hard that his tail broke in two, and he dashed up the staircase and escaped out of the attic window. ...And to this day, if you meet Nutkin up a tree and ask him a riddle, he will throw sticks at you, and stamp his feet and scold, and shout- 'cuck-cuck-cuck-cur-r-r-cuck-k-k!'. The End. "

Labels: nature

Sunday afternoon we were returning from lunch, when I began exclaiming loudly over a pair of birds I saw in our tree. Sky thought that at least something or other must be on fire, but no- I was beside myself because I thought I spied two robins in our tree. Being right in the heart of OC, I have never lived in a neighborhood with robins. A few years ago we were at a nature preserve about an hour away, and I saw a robin there..but Robins are not birds we normally live with. I ran into the house to get the camera so I could show our neighbor, who is a real bird watcher...but, they flew off. I hope they come back to visit. Our neighbor said that this was the right time to see them passing through, since they are migrating.

Today we joined a group of homeschoolers for Shakespeare in the park, tho today it was in the house, because it rained. We sat in while a very talented mom read Cymbeline. She had a large group of children clustered around her feet, supplying answers as she asked them what happened at the last reading. I was really impressed! My older two thought the story really good, and want to read the whole thing now, since we missed the first half.

Did I mention it rained today? It was a light rain, the chickens seemed to enjoy it. the cat did not.

April is poetry month, so I will leave you with yet another poem:

Labels: homeschool, nature

Here are a few more photos from our Spring Scavenger hunt, our first finds are *here*.
Our other finds, captured here, are:

*shade of green

*shade of green

*spring mud (with moss)

I had no welcome,
no fancy tea laid on,
so tired inside
that simply raising my arms
seemed too huge a thing.
But Madame Equinox
simply arrived,
put on the kettle,
and blew her breath
through my house,
making herself at home
as if she knew
how much I wished
for an end to cold bitter,
dusting the last leaves
of a forgotten fall
with pollen confetti,
to leave her card,
the sort of RSVP
I can never ignore.

©2007, Lisa Shields
go **here** to read the entire poem

Labels: Charlotte Mason, homeschool, nature

I posted a Spring Scavenger hunt *here*, about a month ago...and finally got the chance to go out with the kids to work on it today. Here are a few items we found:

*Spring flowers

*a fresh spring scent

*signs of nest building

I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do but laugh and go?

by Richard Le Gallienne

Our learning day went something like that today...

sometimes you just have to go with the flow...

Labels: homeschool, nature

Labels: homeschool, nature

We celebrate sightings such as these because in our old neighborhood, the only birds we saw were sparrows, mockingbirds and crows. Our new neighborhood is lined with mature trees and we have a much larger variety of birds visiting. We still do not have the excitement of other places, we do not see colorful cardinals, bluebirds and such. We do have some jays that visit, and we do see western bluebirds in nearby towns. Today we had the pleasure of sighting bluebirds in Long Beach.

Bird watching inspired books in our bookbasket; Birds of North America, The missing sunflower,
Crinkleroot's 25 Birds every child should know, and Linnea's Almanac.

Labels: nature