Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Series #9 Mammals

Outdoor Hour Time
This week the challenge is to get outdoors and look for signs of animals. You can look for tracks, scat, holes, scratches, hair, or other things that mammals leave behind. Remember to make your nature study time like an investigation.

Here are a couple of tracks we saw in the small wood by our home.

Some more small tracks.

We've found quite a few tracks this year in the snow... here are some more.

*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Series #8 One Small Square-Winter

The Outdoor Challenge:

Gather-

• Yarn
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Four rocks (we used old pencils)
  
• Optional: small garden trowel and magnifying lens

Measure off one square somewhere out in your yard or near-by park. I prefer to do this somewhere I can dig up a few inches of soil and not get into trouble. Use your ruler to place rocks in a one foot square plot. Use the yarn to mark off the edges of your square.

Now the challenge comes in. See how many different things you can find in your square.

We had to dig down eight inches to get to the soil.

The ground was frozen about 1/8 inch down.

But we were able to dig up a bit of earth to look at a little more closely.

We magnified the mud and saw some roots and a tiny white worm.
The ice crystals were pretty amazing too.

*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

The Outdoor Hour Winter Series #2 Winter Tree Study

The Challenge#2: Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to study your tree.
If you are just starting out with a tree study, pick a tree from your yard that you can watch through all four seasons. Have your children make as many observations as possible, perhaps comparing the appearance to how it was during autumn. Another way to record your tree changes is to take photographs in every season. This makes for a very easy nature journal entry once you get back indoors. If your weather is too cold or snowy to go outdoors, you can pick a tree to observe from your window or you can bring in a twig or cone to study from your tree instead.



We don't have any trees in our yard but our back yard neighbor has this one.
This is from our school room window.



It's dark and snowy even though it's the middle of the afternoon.



Our tree has some cool twists of the branches.



Here's a close up of the twig we looked at under a magnifying glass.


*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Series #7 Winter Bird Study

The challenge: Spend 15-20 minutes outdoors this week looking for local birds. Choose one of the birds to learn more about and to record in your nature journal. If you are participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, plan on spending your outdoor time to tally birds you see in your yard. If the weather is too cold, you can always sit at a window where you can see your birdfeeder and take a tally from there.

We watched for birds on the 12th for 15 min. in our yard. We saw... 3 Brown Creepers, 2 House Finch, and a House Wren.

We watched for birds on the 13th for 15 min. in our yard. We saw... 1 Brown Creeper, 1 Pine Siskin, 1 female Brown-headed Cowbird, and a European Starling.

We watched for birds on the 14th for 15 min. in our yard. We saw... 20 Song Sparrows on the roof of a neighboring house.

We watched for birds on the 15th for 15 min. in our yard. We saw... 1 House Wren.

*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

The Outdoor Hour Winter Series Challenge #6 Salt

The Outdoor Challenge: Spend 15-20 minutes outdoors this week in your own backyard carefully looking for something that interests you. Relaxed nature study outside your own backyard can be surprisingly fun since you let your children lead your adventure.

Indoor Challenge: For this challenge we will be doing something a little different. How would you like to grow your very own crystals to observe? You can make our own crystals by dissolving salt in water and then letting it sit in a saucer in your very own windowsill.

Moca doing a salt crystal experiment.

Moca putting in 5 Tbs. of water. Moca putting 8 Tbs. of salt in.

Jo Bean doing a salt crystal experiment.

Jo Bean adding 5 Tbs. of salt.

The pictures of the finished product didn't turn out. But we saw some cool crystals.
*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

The Outdoor Hour Winter Series #3 Winter Sky and Stars

The Challenge: Couldn't observe the stars because there were clouds every night this week.

Weather Statistics for , 2010

Sunrise: 6:45 AM
Sunset: 7:00PM

High temperature: 35 degrees F
Low temperature: 26 degrees F
Winds: 15mph
Precipitation: 2%
Pollen Count: No Activity

The Outdoor Hour Winter Series #4 Winter Weather

The Challenge: This week you can use your time to enjoy the winter weather in your backyard. We took a short walk down our street to see what we could see. Sugar Plum said, "Mommy, it's coooold out here."

Snow, Snow
Lovely white
Snow!

*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

The Outdoor Hour Winter Series #1 Cattail Study-Winter

The Challenge: Take your Outdoor Hour Time and visit your cattail location if possible. Many of us were surprised that we actually had cattails close to our homes and it will be fun to revisit the area now that winter is upon us. (If you do not have cattails in your neighborhood, see the alternate activity below.)

We don't have any cattails near our home but we did find these...

Bamboo Shoots

Weather Statistics for February 11, 2010

Sunrise: 7:24 AM
Sunset: 5:51 PM
10 hrs and 27 min of daylight-tomorrow will be the same
High temperature: 24 degrees F
Low temperature: 22 degrees F
Winds: From the West at 5-10 mph
Precipitation: 0.1 in.
Pollen Count: No Activity
Moon Cycle: waning crescent with 5% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.

The Outdoor Hour Winter Series #5 Pine Trees

A view from The Lake
Yes, I was actually standing on a Great Lakes
when I took this picture.

This week we went to the Lake to study Pine Trees.
We took a small detour onto the Lake itself,
it was tons of fun, but we all froze our little bums off.



Three little Popsicles

Sugar Plum Rock collecting Z train in a crevasse

Jo Bean trying not to smile Moca showing off his new find


In an Ice Cave pretty cool!


We found some color in the snow

The Challenge#5: Spend 15 minutes outdoors this week with your children in your own yard or on your own street. This week you will have two suggested activities. If you have a pine tree of any variety in your yard or on your street, use the ideas from the lesson on page 674 and 675 to guide your observation of the pine tree.

Here is what we found...

The Ten Common Pine Trees of North America

eastern white pine
western white pine
sugar pine
red pine
pitch pine
jack
longleaf pine
shortleaf pine
loblolly pine
Virginia pine


We found this pine a short walk from the shore


Here are the needles


And here is one of the buds
It will become a pine cone in the spring


And this is a baby pine of the same variety

We answered these questions...

• What is the general shape of the pine tree?
• Z train: "A puffy triangle shape."
• Is there one central stem running straight up through the center of the tree to the top?
• Jo Bean: "Yes, but it isn't exactly vertical."
• What color is the bark?
• Moca: "Brown and green."
• Is the bark ridged or in scales?
• Z train: "Ridged, but kind of smooth too."
• Study the pine leaves. Why are they called needles?
• Moca: "They look just like sowing needles."
• How many needles in the bundle?
• Jo Bean: "Some have four, some five all clumped together."
• Does it have a cone?
• Z train: "No, but there is a bud."

After researching pine trees
we think this is an eastern white pine


Weather Statistics for February 9, 2010

Sunrise: 7:27 AM
Sunset: 5:49 PM
10 hrs and 22min of daylight-tomorrow will be 2 minutes longer
High temperature: 27 degrees F
Low temperature: 26 degrees F
Winds: From the East Northeast at 8 mph
Precipitation: 1 in. 100%
Pollen Count: No Activity
Moon Cycle: waning crescent with 16% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated

*If you'd like to learn more about Outdoor Hour Winter Series just click the icon at the top of this post.