1. Read. Begin your study by reading and learning about John James Audubon. Born April 26th, 1785, he has an interesting life having come to America from England to learn about business. But instead he became one of the most well known naturalist artists! He is most known for his paintings of birds. But he is equally as much a scientist as an artist and is credited with being the first to “band” birds. Painting, left, is John James Audubon. Oil on Canvas 1826 by John Syme.

I recommend this wonderful book on John James Audubon:

The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon

This book is totally amazing. It tells the story of Audubon’s  life in an engaging and educational way. Great  for kindergarten on up. Here is an example of nature study style pages that are interwoven throughout:

 2. Explore. Going outdoors to explore is the best way to nature study. It doesn’t have to be daunting. It can be your backyard if you like! But finding a park, lake, hiking trails, or another natural place nearby that you can frequent is most ideal. Visiting the same place over time allows you to see how the seasonal changes effect wildlife in your area. 3. Discover.Occasionally something will come your way or you’ll be lucky enough to have the birds come to you. Providing the natural environments, offering food, water, and places to live will attract them. Here is my daughter’s charcoal drawing of the nest:4. Observe. Spend a little time. Be quiet and just observe.
5. Record.There are so many different reasons and ways you can record what you see! Pencil, watercolor, colored pencils, charcoals, photography, and more! My minimum requirement for my children was for them to date their nature journal entries. This way you can have a record and track behaviors and changes in your environment. Here is an excerpt of my daughter’s nature notebook on the Northern Cardinal:

Can you do nature study with your kids even if you think you’re not particularly artistic?

Yes! I have both types of children. My oldest children have an incredible aptitude for art, the artistic type. But I also have a child that is more gifted mechanically. His strength is not art. But I am happy to say we have still studied birds together in other ways which I still consider nature study. After all, birds are a part of nature and we studied them!

Different ways to do bird studies for the artistically hopeless:

{or at least those who think they are}

Study birds by region.

A great way to study birds is by regions. Do country or state reports focusing on birds. You can have your child research various countries, or continents for younger children, and study what birds are in them. Or even better, study the U.S. by the birds that each state has selected as their state birds. This is a fun way to sneak Geography in without your young naturalist knowing. You may like to use my Free State Notebook Pages and add a page for drawing the bird. With my non-artistic type we began a study of the united states in Second Grade in which we used most of the books from My Father’s World – Adventures in Us History that included learning about birds!

Make a field trip to a place known for birds.

We had the opportunity to visit San Juan Capistrano when we were PCS’ing  (making a permanent change of station). It is known for the swallows that come and go every year. Where do they go and why? Making a similar trip to a place known for birds might be a great way to study the migration habits of a particular type of bird.

While living in Virginia we had the unique experience of observing Tundra Swans every winter. They came every winter and went back north each summer. It was a neat way to learn about migration also!

Here is Audubon’s painting of the Tundra Swan:

This is one of my favorite pages from Nature Lover’s ( my daughter’s) Notebook! She used water color. The splash was made using a tooth brush. See my Hokusai art lesson for explanation.

Visit an Aviary.

If you can’t get out in nature you can always go to a zoo with an aviary! Bring your notebooks and spend the day observing and sketching.

How we studied Birds this year:

We used Apologia: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day for our science this year. We used it with our co-op! So naturally, having an art unit on Audubon was perfection! While looking at his works we also studied American Birds and their behaviors. Audubon didn’t just draw birds he showed them in action! Here’s a sample from mechanical man’s notebook:

You can get nature study going with other activities as well. These were part of our Apologia curriculum. I’ll be sharing more on that as we go but I’d like to share this photo of the bird house he made and a bunch of nest materials we put out to see if any birds would use them for making their nests. As I said, he is my mechanical man. So while he doesn’t get into to drawing after drawing of birds, he did thoroughly enjoy the chance to make a bird house. And loves watching birds too!

Art Links and Nature Study Resources:

Nature Study on Birds from Cindy @ Our Journey Westward
Birds- Handbook of Nature Study
Birdwatching 101: Attracting Birds to Your Yard from Barb @ Handbook of Nature Study. She also has these great Bird Freebies:
Bird Life List Printable
Bird Study Nature Table Printable ( Very Montessori)
and an Owl Study Notebooking Page
Nature Study Tips from iHomeschool Network- A Google+ Hangout!

Birds of the World Notebooking Pages ( free) from Debra @ NotebookingPages.com

Also Linked up with: Teaching Stars, 

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Five things from our backyard nature study.

1.  Millipedes and their importance to the soil.
2.  Moss and it’s growing conditions.
3.  The gray squirrel and it eating habits.
4.  The bird that lives in my siding to raise it’s young.
5.  The moth that looks like a leaf.

A dazzling millipede.  We have already learned a ton about it. We believe it is from the family Polydesmida. Still looking for its common name, so if you know it, please comment, but it is one of the flat type millipedes. We always see his like when picking up the leaves that fall from the trees surrounding the house (a year long job around here just to keep near the house clear). Millipedes have a diet of dead leaves and are a key player in the soil food web. Contrary to popular myth most have less than 1,000 legs. The larger millipedes range to 750 legs while smaller have anywhere from 50-100.

Millipedes are of great importance to the soil.

Then there is the moss that is slowly taking over the yard. Really, grass can only grow where there is plenty of sun. So this isn’t the house for a yard. But there is a lot of other kinds of greenery such as

Ivy…

Shamrocks…

 and  Moss.

I think this moss looks amazing up close. We discussed what conditions moss needs to grow. And grow well here it does. Moss are non-vascular plants which means they have no vascular system. This is absolutely why they grow well here. They dont have to have roots into the ground so they can grow on tree roots, rocks, and the like. Competition is weak here, as I said the lawn isn’t making it, so moss will find it’s place where others can’t make it. And since moss absorbs water into its leaves, it makes it well adapted to this shady wet environment. I am pretty sure my soil is acidic since there are so many fir trees and this particular moss must also be just fine with that.Moss can grow in difficult places.

On to the gray squirrel who lives in our tree, whom we affectionately call “Peanut”.  It is an ordinary thing to see lots of squirrels in our neighborhood. But what was striking today was the behavior we observed. How carefully he watched us to make sure we weren’t getting too close. He must have just come back from scavenging food. Can you guess what he holds in his mouth for eating? The Eastern Gray Squirrel loves it’s  mushrooms!

He’s eating a mushroom. And we discussed that he knows what kinds to eat and what kind not to.

Once he got concerned enough, he scampered off to his nest to secure his safety. Believe it or not there is a bird that lives in the siding of my house. A built in bird house! My son can hear the babies in the nest and other fluttering in his bedroom wall.

These pictures don’t do the bird justice. She is beautiful. She has  brilliant blue on her tail and wing. The babies have already hatched. Here she is bringing food them. This Eastern Bluebird feeds her young.

She is an Eastern Bluebird. I am sure of it. She is less blue as a female but I have seen the male visit as well and he is very blue. I feel blessed to have them as summer visitors as the nest is here only in the spring and summer to raise young. Once the young birds are old enough they fly away, then I wont be seeing them the rest of the season.Speaking of food supply, there is a lot of food here for these birds. Which is surely a reason to nest here even though so close to humans. She can find plenty for her birds to eat.

Spiders

Worms…

And moths.

This was an excellent opportunity to discuss camouflage. This snout moth needs to look like a leaf to hide from the many birds nearby, such as my bluebirds.  This moth is closest to or is Renia Sobrialis. One of the 13 species of the genus Renia. Took me forever to find that guy. But the distinguishing marks are on his wings..the small yellow spots and his definite snout type nose. This snout moth is hard to see among the leaves.

We found out so much more about our “one small square” by taking just a little time to see the extraordinary right outside my door. Check out the other blogs included in the Blog Carnival below or submit to the next carnival at the Handbook of Nature Study Blog:  Outdoor Hour Challenge.

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Each chapter has lesson plans which gives direction and ideas for study. It covered our read aloud, English, writing, geography and history, science and social studies for the time we used it. All I added to make it a complete homeschool program was our math program.

I also added my own spelling lists and we also created a Seabird seascape art project. (See project below.)

 Here’s a quick summary of what we covered by subject area:

• English– vocabulary, writing assignments, literary analysis such as-character study, word uses (vivid verbs),  imagery, writing dialects, foreshadowing, similes and metaphors.We incorporated dictionary and research skills as well.
• Animal Science–  seabird study, arctic animal study, or whale study

You might like to use my nature notebook pages to record your animal studies. Read more about Bird Notebook Pages here.

• Earth Science– glaciers and icebergs, island formation
• Social Studies-Greenland, Nantucket, history of whaling, the South Pacific, kinds of boats, sea travel, the Andes, California Gold Rush, Hawaii, latitudes and longitudes, China, generations, India

3D Seabird Sea Scape Tutorial

Materials you will need:

• Large shallow cardboard box or lid.
• Pacon Fadeless Art Paper, 48″ x 50′ roll, Clouds
• Acrylic Paints ( Variety of ocean and sea floor colors.)
• Cardboard to cut out coral and underwater plants.
• Shells, plastic animals, etc.
• Clay, popsicle sticks and white paper for sails.

1. Find a large shallow box or lid. Paint to cover words or cover with sky printed paper. We used Pacon Cloud Print Art Paper  for back cover and sky.For the iceberg, we simply added crumpled printer paper and painted around it.

2. Paint the background. For seabird we needed a sea bed area, under ocean area, arctic area, and sky- which is the cover paper in our case.

3. Next, add the details you want from the story. Whales, Seabird himself, coral and underwater details, and perhaps the island details.

4. Add a model ship. We designed our own little clipper ship from a few resources and our imagination:

Go here to build your own and research more about clippers.
We also found a interesting book on making a model, which could certainly be a stand alone project.

• Sculpt bottom with clay and bake.
• Cut and glue paper triangles and trapezoids to popsicle sticks for the masts and sails.
• Then attach to the them to the base with hot glue.

5. Now hang your ship from the top of the box. To add the ship you can use fish line or thread and hang to inside top with sturdy clear tape. And here is our finished product:

What’s your a favorite Holling Clancy Holling Book?

Linked @:Living and Learning @ Home

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