Habitats at Morningside Nature Center

[taken in part from a friend's blog]


Our group took a lovely field trip this week to Morningside Nature Center. They’ve been doing programs for both public and home schooled children for years, and it shows. Their presentation was well-organized, engaging, and really reached the kids.

The title was “Animal Homes.” There was a brief discussion of animals’ physical adaptations which give them advantages in their environments (complete with skeletons and taxidermy for illustration), then the focus moved to habitats. The kids learned that the 4 necessary components of any habitat are: food, water, shelter, and space. Then the fun part began.


Each student was given a small plastic animal and a laminated sheet with information about it. Then, with the presenter’s guidance, they built a habitat for the animals in a big wading pool filled with sand that included all the necessary elements. The presenter talked them through the food chain and how it influenced the spacing and placement of different species. One of the children was feeling contrary and refused to place his frog in the habitat, but instead of derailing the lesson, the presenter used the frog’s absence to demonstrate how the entire ecosystem could be disrupted by the destruction of one species. It was really quite ingenious.

Then she used a toy bulldozer to level some trees and build a “house” by the lake, and she talked about all the various ways that humans dwelling in that particular spot were likely to cause damage. She guided the kids through ways that humans could more thoughtfully establish their own habitat within the system to minimize environmental impact, and the kids really got into it. It warmed my heart, I have to say.

Then we went on a nature walk. It was quite cold, so we didn’t see any animals, but our guide pointed out many signs showing where they’d been.

Not Back to School Potluck

Today, along with six other homeschooling families, we celebrated not going back to school. A potluck gathering meant lots of fun and socializing to be had, for kids, moms and dads alike! Among this setting, there were groups forming to act out the Boxcar Children, a children's army, petting and caring for the goats, dress-up, water play, trains, LEGOs, and archery.



It was really a great way to continue our summer past the arbitrary school calendar cut-off. It was a hard transition to leave for pretty much everyone. Luckily, we'll see almost everyone again tomorrow (most dads will be back to work, and miss our fun trip to the owl sanctuary!).

Circle Camp Finale

After two weeks of our peace talk-themed summer camp, the kids put on an amazing performance complete with drumming, dancing, singing, and skits. Lots was learned in terms of talking with others compassionately and getting to feelings and needs instead of blame and hurt.

Maypole

For K's BD, we researched a traditional maypole design and looked at examples in P's medieval knight and castle books. Cut and sewed together ribbons and tied them to a hoop around our sycamore tree, which the kids used to do several different rotations and styles of circling the tree.

Hoggetowne Medieval Faire

Visited the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire today. P and his dad participated in a fencing tournament, which P won. P and K rode the hobby horses and looked at dioramas of medieval life. We watched demonstrations of weaving, armor-making, using weaponry, and acrobatics.

Number Love and Workbook Fun

Today, P decided on the way to go swimming to count from 100 to 200, and did so with no problems. After returning from swimming (where we spent about 2 hours in the pool with both P and K learning to kick), P started turning over pairs of Uno Hearts cards and adding them together with the use of Math-U-See manipulatives.

We then started looking through the stack of Brighter Vision Learning Adventure workbooks we've collected, and both P and K started working through pages of them. K stuck mainly to coloring via a color-dot method and practicing letters. P followed a chart to color images, worked some 2-digit equations, some word finds, decoder puzzle (where you use a code and then write the word based on it), logic puzzle, mazes, and search and find pictures. We also did a word page that emphasized the consonant digraph "wh". P did skip-counting by 10s and by 5s (using nickel examples).

1+10=11

Irish step dancing VS Tap dancing

Conversation led to us deciding to look up just how a "jig" is danced (thank you YouTube!), the kids practiced (with Daddy), and then we looked at some clips of Riverdance (specifically ones with male dancers). Finally, we talked about how it differed from tap dancing, and found a clip that actually had two male tap dancers and three male Irish step dancers "battling" -- it was such fun!

July 2nd

Blueberry Farming

Discussion of space station concepts, (L5). Spanish for butterfly (mariposa).

Peace Camp: Day Four

P's activities today were: Board Games, Marbles, and Chess.

In addition, P is learning typical "socialized" behaviors, including lunch sharing, name calling, and general potty talk. We discussed in depth the importance of being Kind First, thoughtful and respectful of all, and that some language just are generally inappropriate for people in general (and kids in particular). We also discussed healthy food options based on nutritional values, and made sure to get more input on what we included in his lunch.

Today's theme: "It Matters What You Do!"

Peace Camp: Day Three

P's activities today were: Kickball (a new favorite), Silly Camp Songs (including "Alice the camel"), and Drum Circle (guess drumming is still a passion!!).

Today's theme: "It Matters What You Do!"

Peace Camp: Day Two

P's activities today were: Lawn Bowling, Kickball, and Chess.

Today's theme: "It's a Blessing You were Born."

Rum Island

P and K and I spent the day at Rum Island, a natural spring along the Santa Fe river. On the way we saw a mother raccoon with her litter of four babies, and discussed springtime and how most animals have their children at this time. We also saw a group of turkey vultures eating at a busy intersection and discussed how they are carrion eaters.

At the spring, we discussed how the spring is fed by fresh water and what causes tannin in the river that makes it so dark. We explored the reeds and grasses along the edge and looked at the different types of fish and dragonflies. We saw several different kinds of boats and discussed how they move through the water. Later we walked through the woods and saw a rattlesnake, and discussed how to identify dangerous snakes and how to avoid them.

Along the way home he spotted the smoke cloud from the Tyler Grade fire and talked about how to identify smoke from a forest fire and various ways of containing such a fire.

Once we got home we practiced how to spell kayak and canoe, and discussed the meaning of a palindrome.

Morningside Farm & Forest Festival

Live Oak

http://www.floridahikes.com/blog/2007/02/10/floridas-largest-oak/

Rock Climbing

Power Tools, Music, and Outdoor Fun

Learning Coop Activity Day
There was a lot of focus and intensity on the drilling/decoration activity of creating Stick Men and/or Spring Trees.



Both P and K waited their turns to use the drill to make a hole and select an appropriately sized stick for their selected activity of a Spring Tree. P even let a few other kids in front of him, most notably his sister.

After drilling the hole and placing the main stick, everyone worked diligently to create the Spring Tree of their vision.



The final art trees:



Afterwards, the kids went outside to explore the yard, using shovels to dig into the dirt, finding worms and beetles. P held an earthworm for the fastest count-of-5 ever, and all of the kids enjoyed fresh air and dirt, with a healthy game of "catch me".


The end of the day, P got the chance to "jam" a bit musically on the guitar with a local musician who was a guest of the host's boarder. They had a great time!

Farm Life, Silk Painting, Outdoor Exploration

Birthday Cake Lesson

Another Learning Coop activity, the planned lesson was to talk about birthdays and celebrations, read the book __________, measure and bake a cake, and then decorate it afterwards.

P played but didn't participate in the actual baking activity, though he sang happy birthday, listened to the story and decorated/ate the cake. And LOVED playing with others in the backyard.

K listened to the story, peeked in through the passthrough at the baking, and finally warmed up more when it was time to decorate/eat the cake. After that, she was golden, and in the end left saying she loved the host-mom's daughter. And, this afternoon, she told me how much she liked two older girls in the group who wear skirts like her and have brown hair like her.