OHC Summer Series #1: Mosquitoes and World of Smell (part 1)

OHC Summer Series #1: Mosquitoes and World of Smell

Outdoor Hour Challenges
Summer Series #1 Mosquitoes and World of Smell
We began our first Summer Nature Study.

Train Your Senses

• Sight: We began to learn that it takes about two minutes for our eyes to adjust to the evening light. We used our sense of sight to observe insects at night. We saw some birds and bats eating insects. We also saw a lot of fireflies.

• Smell: We caught the scent of many flowers both with sweet and pungent scents, as well as grasses, and tree sap.
  

• Hearing: We didn't hear any insects buzzing around but we did hear dogs barking and children playing.
  

Inside Preparation Work:
1. We read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 411-415 on mosquitoes.

Outdoor Hour Time:
1. This week we spent our 15 minutes outdoors at sundown. I think we are getting into the rhythm of going outdoors in the evening. We spent some time observing our backyard and neighborhood as the light was fading.

We tried to collect some live mosquito larvae but was unsuccessful. We'll try again on our next outing. Instead we found lightning bugs, flowers and dried leaves.

Follow-Up Activity:
1. We kept track of all the smells of summer that we could smell on our outings.

Sugar's list of summer scents~ pretty flowers, wet doggy, flowers.
Z train's list of summer scents~
Moca's list of summer scents~ cut grass, flowers that smelled like honey, something musky, something sweet smelling, tree sap, some nasty flowers and smoke.
Jo Bean's list of summer scents~ dried grass, melted ice cream, dead bugs freshly cut grass, and a gross smell.
Mommy's list of summer scents~ flowers, pine sap, musky smell, strong tree flower scent, wood smoke, cut grass.