Nature Crowns

With today's post, my hope is to illustrate just how simple learning from home can be. It doesn't take much preparation or planning in the early years to create meaningful learning opportunities. Not only that, but when a parent follows the child's cues and capitalizes on their interests, the learning becomes that much richer.

Today we made nature crowns. 

Early this morning, my daughter said she wanted to make some nature jewelry. After cleaning her room (a task that needlessly took ALL morning, but perhaps that's a post for another day), we went outside. With us, I brought a sheet to sit on, a single hole punch, a pair of safety scissors, a roll of masking tape, and some yarn. And my coffee, since I drink that stuff all day long.

Since my son was with us and I wanted to get him interested in this game, I suggested making crowns and they were both all for it. 

Task one: collect some leaves. Daniel ended up collecting all the brown ones that had already fallen. At first I discouraged this because I wasn't sure if they would hold up to a hole punch. But we discovered that they worked well and he went for it. Natalie stuck with mostly live, green leaves. 

Task two: punch some holes in those leaves. 

After I took this picture, I suggested punching two holes in each leaf so that they would lay flat on the crown.

They were both able to punch their own holes, which is excellent for developing fine motor skills.

This part also took some time to complete, requiring persistence and patience (several of the leaves tore during the punching process). 

Task three: string the leaves in the same way that you'd string beads. I wrapped one end of the yarn with a short piece of masking tape to prevent it from fraying. Then I tied one leaf onto the other end and gave each child their string.

Along with leaves, they each dug up one of our pesky ferns (those things are crazy hard to get rid of) in order to find the seed and I helped them tie the seed onto their crowns. 

Natalie also collected several small flowers to poke into the punched holes in her leaves. Daniel chose to poke in a little fern. I love how they were presented with the same project and came up with very different results. 

Daniel's kind of reminds me of Lord of the Flies. The fact that he took off his shirt really only adds to the whole image in me head. (On a side note, I cannot believe how warm it's been here lately. Yes, these pictures were actually taken today, December 19.)

Such a cutie!

And Natalie's was just so sweet with her greenery and yellow flowers.

Very fitting for a sweet girl.

After they finished with their crowns, they went off to play "king" and "queen" for a little while. It fills me with happiness to watch this kind of play go down...creating something and then using that creation in their pretend world. So, so good. 


How does this fit with a Charlotte Mason education? Not only was this activity a complete game for my youngsters, but while playing, they were observing and identifying nature. We found several different types of plants and named them, and we discovered which plants were hardier and which were more fragile. 

Not only that, but the kids were working on simple skills (hole punching and stringing leaves) which will lead to the development of more complex skills (and more involved handicrafts) as they grow.  

And they loved it. They had a lot of fun. That's not specifically Charlotte Mason, but I think we can all agree that when kids are having fun learning it's nothing but a good thing. 

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Our Homeschool Morning: Dinosaurs, Bones, and Cicadas

Well, we've kicked off another homeschool preschool year and so far, it's been a lot of fun. Daniel is super enthusiastic about the Dino Dig (tomorrow) and he's been loving the books we checked out from the library.

As I've mentioned, I've only planned one or two activities a day, leaving most of the morning wide open for free play, indoors and out. I am learning that if we're outside, Daniel needs some guidance so that he doesn't end up wandering around the yard moaning about how bored he is. I'm also learning that a change of scenery works wonders; sometimes we spend the mornings in the backyard and sometimes the front yard. On top of that, it's hot here in Florida. Really hot. So it helps to throw in some water play to cool everyone off. 

In this post, I'm actually going over a few of the activities from the last two mornings.

Books we're reading and loving:

"Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs - Missing Treasure", by Giles Andreae

This is a great storybook. It's definitely fiction, and it's just for fun. Daniel loves dinosaurs and he loves pirates. This book very effectively combines both of his loves. Oh, and the name Gurgleguts may or may not be a part of the story and Daniel may or may not have laughed hysterically when I read it to him. 

"Digging Up Dinosaurs", by Aliki

I loved this book! What a great nonfiction book for young children. It explains how dinosaur fossils get from the ground to the museum in an entertaining and age-appropriate way. I did end up rewording some of the information so that Daniel could understand better, but this book held his attention to the very end. That's saying a lot.  

"Ten Terrible Dinosaurs", by Paul Strickland

Another fiction story, with a focus on counting (backwards). Over the years, I've had and/or read books with this plot line to preschoolers and it's always a hit. With simple rhymes and large, bold print numbers, this book is great for practicing number recognition and counting. 

Plaster Casts of our Footprints:

After reading one of our nonfiction books about dinosaur fossils, we noted that sometimes paleontologists don't find the bones at all - sometimes all they find is a footprint. I decided that it would be fun to help the kids make a "fossil" of their own footprints using Plaster of Paris. We bought a box of Plaster of Paris at Michaels Craft Store for $4.50 (we had a 50% off coupon). 

Step one: fill a box with dirt from your yard. Alternatively, (and this would probably work better) you could use sand.

Water it down a little. You want the dirt to be hard enough to hold a foot print.

Have your child step into the box to make a footprint. You might have to help push down their toes to get a good print, and after they took their foot out I dug down around the print a little to make it deeper.

Mix up your Plaster of Paris. Basically, it's equal parts powder and water. We used a plastic cup and spoon and the kids helped with stirring. Then carefully pour a little plaster into the prints. Our directions told us to pour halfway and then tap the box to release air bubbles. We dd that, but it didn't seem to work...so I just poked my finger in there to get the air bubbles out. Then we filled each print the rest of the way. 

Wait half an hour or so and then carefully flip the footprint casts out of the box. We set ours on a piece of parchment paper.

I gave each of the kids an old toothbrush and instructed them to brush the dirt away, just like a paleontologist would brush the dirt off of a fossil. They got right to work.

It was very difficult to get all the dirt off, so the next day I took them out to the water hose and sprayed them with water. This is how they look now:

Pretty cool, huh? Not sure what we'll do with them, yet. Maybe stick them in the school room and admire them for a bit. Oh, and you'll notice that Natalie's footprint cast is broken in half. She did that yesterday by setting it down on the porch a little too hard. Lesson learned: these are fragile, especially before they've cured all the way. I'll glue this one up so that it's in one piece again, but we were a little sad that it broke. 

Examining a Wildebeest Bone:

Several years ago, my husband did some mission work in Africa, and on one of his trips he and his team went on a safari. He came across this bone on the ground and the tour guide believed it to have come from a wildebeest.

It's been living in a bowl on his dresser ever since. And since we're talking about fossils this week, I thought it would be the perfect thing for Daniel to examine. 

I brought it out and he was immediately captivated. I let him look at it for a couple minutes, and then I asked him to describe it. Turns out 3 year olds need very clear direction. Asking open ended questions like, "What do you notice about this bone?" gives you answers like, "I think it came from a dinosaur." So, I quickly switched to questions like, "What color is it?" "Is it heavy or light?" "Is it smooth or rough?" and, "Do you notice that hole on the end?" With more direct questions, Daniel was able to focus his observations to things he could see, rather than jumping to conclusions. 

I made a little book with two pieces of computer paper folded in half:

Inside were pages where Daniel could write down his observations (he dictated them to me and I wrote them down):

And draw pictures of the bone:

Incidentally, he did end up coming to the conclusion that this was, in fact, a dinosaur bone, and nothing would convince him otherwise. I also learned this morning that Daniel actually believes that the animatronic dinosaurs we saw at this zoo this year are real. As in really alive. That kind of blew me away. I had not thought to make it clear to the kids that they were pretend. I just assumed that they knew that. Whoops.

Outside Play:

Finding a Cicada Skin:

Daniel found this little beauty this morning on the playset. I've been seeing cicadas around here a lot lately and today we were lucky enough to find the skin from one who had just molted. 

He practiced his balancing act:

And dissected one of the dead flowers from our elephant ears:

This was a lot of fun for him, but it's important to note that...

When you're dealing with nature sometimes things go a little south.

Daniel got into the slimy stuff inside the flower bud and then rubbed his eyes. Not good. We immediately cleaned his eyes and washed his hands. After he calmed down we talked about how it's important to keep his hands away from his face if there's anything on them. And I also thought to myself it might be wise to invest in some safety gear. Gloves, for example.

All in all, a lot of fun! I can't wait to take Daniel and Silas to the playground tomorrow for our Dino Dig. He's been asking about it for two weeks, so I'm excited to actually set it up for him :)

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How to Set Up a Nature Box

...in 6 easy steps.

1. Find a box. It doesn't have to be fancy-shmancy. I grabbed a wooden crate that my husband found on the side of the road some time ago. It had previously been decorating our front porch. Sorry, porch. 

2. If your box has holes, as ours does, cut up an old cereal box or some other piece of cardboard to place in the bottom.

3. Put it in the bottom of you box (man, these steps are simple!).

4. We added an ice cube tray to corral all the teeny tiny bits of nature the kids might bring home.

5. Go on a nature walk! Find a local park, wildlife refuge, or - as we did today - walk around the neighborhood. 

We found evergreen trees:

All three of the kids had fun feeling the branches. 

Cactus (which we did not feel):

And wildflowers...or weeds. You know.

Natalie brought an empty cereal bag with her and they both put some of their finds in it to bring home.

While walking, we also paid attention to other things. We felt the wind and the kids noticed that it started to get stronger on our walk. They played in large, muddy mud puddles and got completely soaked (I'm trying to be more laid back about that sort of thing). Natalie and Daniel started screaming to see if they could hear their echo - they could. Silas joined in. Doesn't matter how young you are, I guess - screaming is fun. We noted the dark grey clouds in the sky, and we heard thunder. That was when we started walking home. On the way, I asked them what they thought the wind, the clouds, and the thunder might mean, and they both said rain. 

When we got back, they arranged their things in the box. Well, I'm using the term "arranged" liberally. Basically, they threw everything in and I arranged it all. They are preschoolers after all.

The pine cone and the dried flowers were from another walk, another day. We found them on the porch with the box and decided to add them in.

And our little tiny bits:

What are we going to do with it all?

Above all, I don't want this nature box to become stagnant. I want it to stay interesting, and if the kids have thoroughly examined everything several times, then they'll start to ignore it. I think the key here is to rotate things in and out fairly often. Right now, my idea is that with each new theme, we'll add one or two new items to explore, while at the same time culling out some of the items that have been in the box for awhile.

This is all pretty new to us, so I'll have to keep you posted after it's been in use for a few weeks. Today, though, the kids had a blast. They loved being outside, jumping, screaming, looking at things. It was a good reminder: it doesn't take much to get kids excited. Even a walk around the neighborhood can make their morning. 

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Considering Charlotte Mason

Last year, when Natalie was 3, I worked with her fairly regularly, especially during the beginning of the year. We spent most of our time on the alphabet and threw in a few math activities every week. She ate it up. She loved (almost) every minute of it. But then, it came pretty easy to her. 

After some reflection, though, I've decided that I kind of want to scrap that approach with Daniel this year. He doesn't learn in the same way as Natalie. He's much more rambunctious, he loves playing with sticks and bugs, and he has a hard time sitting still for very long. Having done some research, I'm coming to really like the ideas behind the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling. 

I love that nature study is such a huge component of this method. Just get those kids outside and let them observe!

This year, I really want to build nature study into our everyday routine. There are so many things to discover, and kids have such a strong desire to explore. Take them outside, to some place new, and they're off and running.

Today, in an effort to start building nature study into our day, we went to Ft. Caroline. 

It's this smallish French Fort on the St. John's River, the river that our city was built on.

We found Spanish moss:

nuts:

Holes in trees:

Cargo ships (okay, not really nature, but still cool):

And of course, the fort:

We spent time just outside the fort resting in the shade.

The kids didn't rest for very long before they were off again.

After the fort, we went inside the visitor center to cool off. There were a lot of neat things to look at inside, too! If we didn't have Silas, who was running low on patience at that point, we could have stayed for awhile longer looking at the exhibits. But Silas was starting to cry, so we left.

Not a bad start to the year! I'm taking some time this week to come up with a rough outline of our homeschool year and will be posting some of those plans on Wednesday. I think I am finally getting excited about the school year starting back up. It's been difficult to get back into the swing of things, but I think the reality of Natalie starting preschool next Monday has given me the kick in the pants that I needed.

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