Nature Study: Buckeye Tree

I sent the kids outside with their nature journals and a tree identification book and they made a great discovery! They correctly identified a buckeye tree in our backyard and they had so much fun collecting the fruit and opening them up to uncover the beautiful, shiny buckeyes. They collected 17 in all and even shared one with someone who was going for a walk in our neighborhood :)  Here are some pictures from our fun day.

Davin looking to identify the tree:

The kids opening the buckeye fruit:

Standing by the buckeye tree:

Dori's nature journal entry:

Quinny's journal:

Davin's journal entry:

Davin's crazy tree creature:

Cheerio Bird Feeder

The kids made a Cheerio bird feeder a few days ago to hang out on the tree in our front yard.  We just love watching birds from our living room, but we have had some bad luck with squirrels destroying our bird feeders!  This delicate little project fared no better, but the kids had fun making it!  All they did was string Cheerios onto pipe cleaners and then formed them into linking circles.  

Here's Quinnlyn feeding some Cheerios to Davin.  She strung a few Cheerios on the pipe cleaner, but decided that eating them was much more enjoyable :)

Davin obviously has the longest attention span to complete this project (even though it only took a few minutes!) 

The finished project:

Nature Study with the Boys

It has been SO hot outside lately that we have not enjoyed the outdoors very much this past week.  It rained earlier today and cooled it down to a comfortable 85 degrees, so it was a perfect day for exploring :)  There are so many exciting things to discover outside, and getting to see the world through the eyes of a child brings me such joy!  "Nature study" and letting kids spend a lot of time playing outside is an important part of Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy, which I have read quite a bit about during our homeschooling journey.  You can read more HERE if you're interested :)  Here's an example of our nature study, which is really just enjoying nature!

As I was sitting on the patio, Dorian was bringing me rocks that he thought were interesting and telling me why he liked them: like, "This one is shiny!" and "This one is white and brown and gray." Then he decided to start smelling the rocks (I have no idea why!) and after sniffing several he said, "This one smells like Daddy!"  I had a good laugh about that one :)  This was Davin's favorite rock:

Then, Dorian was looking around the rocks and discovered a butterfly on the ground.  He told me it wasn't moving, so I picked it up and carried it to the table.  We told Davin to come and look and the boys got quite sad at the fate of the poor butterfly and hugged each other to mourn their loss....I have two sensitive little boys!  It was adorable, though.  Here's the butterfly Dorian found:

When we got inside, we looked online to identify the butterfly and discovered that it was a Black Swallowtail.  Such a beautiful butterfly!:

My keen explorer, Dorian, next spotted a beetle among the rocks.  He called me over to look at it and this is what we saw:

We're not certain about what kind of beetle it is, but it looks like it may be a stag beetle:

Then, the boys were walking around the house and came to one of their favorite spots: the lavender growing beside the garage.  We all love to pull a piece and take a good whiff of that heavenly smell!  Davin often smells it and gets a little woozy with relaxation and falls to the ground to rest for a while :)  It must be very potent!

So, that was our nature study!  It's so much fun to spend a few minutes really appreciating the outdoors with my children.