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Our first attempt at Nature Study...


Sue G in PA
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did NOT go as I hoped/expected. So, we went out to just explore the backyard. We live on 1/2 acre with lots of trees, birds, squirrels, insects, etc. to find. Ds8 doesn't want to draw anything at first. Then he asks if he can just draw something he saw "before" and not something he saw "just now". Hmmm....so dd11 does the same thing. She draws an owl. I ask her, "did you just see an owl?". Um, no, not really. "Have you EVER seen an owl around here...in the middle of the day?". Um, no, but I've seen an owl before...somewhere! Okay.... Ds9 does this amazing drawing of a hawk, complete w/ the shadow on the ground (he really is talented), etc. Great. He saw a hawk on the way home from co-op and drew from memory. Great. We talked about the hawk, how he knew it was a hawk and not say, a vulture or eagle, etc. He knows a bunch about wildlife...probably more than mom! Anyway, I didn't tell them my frustrations or let on that I was upset. It just turned out to be more like art class than nature study! So I ask...do you want to know more about owls? Ummm..no..not really. Okay. To ds8...let's try and figure out what kind of tree this is in our yard and the kinds of birds that you see all year long. Ummm...I don't really want to. Okay.

 

I'm sure it will get better. I'm sure they'll get more "into it" once spring really comes and there is more to actually see and discover. I'm just feeling a bit disappointed and let down. :(

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I love the outdoors, but I know so little about it. And I don't really want to research it. I just plain don't want to.

 

So I take DD to natural history museums and let her learn things there. A couple of times she has taken an oceanography summer camp. Those have been great leaps forward!

 

In one of our local open space preserve organizations, docent led tours and walks are free. You would think I would sign up for them. You would be wrong.

 

In theory I love nature study. In practice, I just want to go out into wild nature and not study it too much...

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Sue,

 

Please don't let yourself be too disappointed. We just started Nature Studies as well. Our trip to feed the geese and our night with the lunar eclipse were great! Then I had this grand idea of observing the clouds. Dd6 said...mommy thats not nature. I told her it was because nature was anything God made. Then she goes on to say that we are then nature and can she just draw a person instead of the clouds. ahhh...she did eventually draw clouds but made sure to inform me that they were not the clouds she saw in the sky but some she made up in her imagination.

 

So keep it up. Some days will be good others a struggle. I just took a breath and played it off. Hopefully this week's will go better. I think getting away from our house works better than trying to do it here.

 

Sheryl in GA

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did NOT go as I hoped/expected. So, we went out to just explore the backyard. We live on 1/2 acre with lots of trees, birds, squirrels, insects, etc. to find. Ds8 doesn't want to draw anything at first. Then he asks if he can just draw something he saw "before" and not something he saw "just now". Hmmm....so dd11 does the same thing. She draws an owl. I ask her, "did you just see an owl?". Um, no, not really. "Have you EVER seen an owl around here...in the middle of the day?". Um, no, but I've seen an owl before...somewhere! Okay.... Ds9 does this amazing drawing of a hawk, complete w/ the shadow on the ground (he really is talented), etc. Great. He saw a hawk on the way home from co-op and drew from memory. Great. We talked about the hawk, how he knew it was a hawk and not say, a vulture or eagle, etc. He knows a bunch about wildlife...probably more than mom! Anyway, I didn't tell them my frustrations or let on that I was upset. It just turned out to be more like art class than nature study! So I ask...do you want to know more about owls? Ummm..no..not really. Okay. To ds8...let's try and figure out what kind of tree this is in our yard and the kinds of birds that you see all year long. Ummm...I don't really want to. Okay.

 

I'm sure it will get better. I'm sure they'll get more "into it" once spring really comes and there is more to actually see and discover. I'm just feeling a bit disappointed and let down. :(

 

 

Oh... its ok though... It will come.... my girls are 15 and 11 and they are interested, and yet not. It will take time.... Im sure as we go outside and begin looking and enjoying nature... the curiosity will get them sooner or later......

 

Are you a part of Barbs green hour challenge?? its been helping me a lot... and also looking at what others are doing... and not doing helps me relax.... I encourage you to look it over if you are not currently... I get confused on here of who is doing what....

 

Here are some links that have been helping me out a lot! Nature Helps I posted them on my blog... but once you start looking through them... it just opens up....

 

Take courage.... keep going... and above all, enjoy being outside with your young ones....:)

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(((Sue)))

Does it help to know that when I tried it the first, second....eleventh time it didn't work out like I was expecting it to? I quit and now a year later, I realized my approach was wrong. Reading The Handbook of Nature Study ( you can online if you can't get a copy now) has really helped but Barb's Green Hour assignments have been a great help too. Maybe reading a book about a naturalist as a read aloud like John Muir My Life with Nature by Joseph Conrad or a picture book about John Audubon might help communicate to your children what you're trying to share with them?

 

It sounds like you're not discouraged so that is a great sign Sue! What book(s) did you get to help you with this?

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as soon as we returned home.

 

My three dd's were excited about getting their nature journals out and drawing at the pond by our house.

Ds (14), not so much, so I told him he could watch the 2 and 3 y.o. boys.

 

So, the 2 y.o. decides to climb a big pile of mud a front loader had used to block the golf cart path.

 

I get him out of that and turn in time to see the 14 y.o. try to drive over the hill of mud in our golf cart and promptly get stuck.

 

It has been raining hard all morning, so you can imagine the mud, and how difficult it was to get that golf cart out of there.

 

My 5 y.o. dd said "I thought we were going to draw nature, not get stuck in the mud!"

 

Ds is outside cleaning the golf cart.

 

I'm in here thinking tomorrow is another day, right?:rolleyes:

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Hmm, this is just my opinion so take it or leave it. I kinda think you have to teach kids to enjoy nature before you attempt to study it. Maybe I'm wrong. I taught my children to enjoy a book long before I taught them to read one. I taught them to enjoy and dance to music before I ever signed my DD up for piano lessons. I think I would just start by making nature part of my day. I'd take them to the park, go for walks, hikes, skip rocks on a pond, whatever. As you learn to just "be" in nature, you start to notice more of what is around you. As you begin to notice what is around you, you start to interact with it, wonder about it, ask questions, desire to capture the moment in a ziploc bag, a picture or a notebook. If you kids get hung up on the "drawing" then ditch it and just enjoy the time outside. There is plenty of time for documenting later. Again, just my 2 cents.

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