Outdoor Hour: An Outdoor Picnic

We finally completed the tenth Outdoor Hour Challenge assignment, which was to have a picnic. This one took me a while to get to; every time I planned to eat outdoors, it rained. I guess I will have to learn to be a bit more spontaneous with our picnicking!

We had a family fishing trip planned in northern Michigan over Memorial Day weekend, complete with outdoor eats, so we finally had our "picnic." We did get some pictures of hot dogs being roasted, but forgot to take pics of people eating them (probably because we were too busy eating ourselves).

Rob and I saw a beautiful snail and a spider on a walk in the woods (click on an image for a larger pic).

We did see some insect life to go with our focus area, some still to be identified.

As an added bonus from kingdom Animalia, we saw two green frogs (one of which was my buddy for the weekend; I was able to identify him by his banjo-like call), a baby painted turtle, and a turtle egg (I think something must have dug into the nest and eaten the other eggs since the nest was open and there was only one egg).

Look at these beautiful red-winged blackbirds! The brown one is the female, and the black one is the male (and, no, I didn't know what the brown bird was until we looked it up at home).

I almost forgot the fish (probably because I didn't catch any)!

Moving onto kingdom Plantae, I was able to capture pictures of ferns in three different stages of development!

Here is some more plant life:

My sister found a morel, and her boyfriend found a patch of about five of them. Yummy!

Kathryn and I collected several rocks that we will work on identifying.

We finally had time to pull out our field guides and work on identification, but we were unable to identify everything in one session.

If you are looking for a simple and gentle way to incorporate nature study into your schedule, I highly recommend the Outdoor Hour Challenge. This is the first time I have been successful at sticking with nature study for a decent length of time. Thanks so much for hosting these challenges, Barb!

~Andrea

HomeschoolBlogger Comments
(use scrollbar on right to read)

Jun. 1, 2008 - Picnics come in all shapes and sizes

Posted by HarmonyArtMom

This was a great picnic! So many things to observe and learn about as well. I am really glad that you are enjoying your challenges and hope that you keep them up. I enjoy reading your entries for each challenge.

Insects are the hardest to identify, at least I think so.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Jun. 3, 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by lahbluebonnet

Wow!We can’t find fun stuff like that around here! Hmmmm, I wonder if we can do the green challenge this summer!

Blessings,

Laurie

Jun. 10, 2008 - Success with Nature Study

Posted by bbullard

...and what success you have had! These pictures are beautiful, and I'm sure that your children are learning immensely from your picnic and other travels.We hit the beach on yesterday and had similar fun, too, until the oldest lost her glasses while helping her younger sister.We have a (not-so-funny) joke around here that every time unmarked money comes into the house, we have some emergency that seeks to take it.All plans of the Lord to keep us on our knees, you know?God bless you, Andrea.

Hey, by chance are you Bibliophile on a homeschool to college e-mail list?I see that name and noticed your Avatar, so I thought, what are the chances.

Write back when you can.