And Abraham Went Out . . .

Nature Study at Devil's Lake State Park

Nature study/science has been such a pleasure this year.  Yes, I know we've just begun but already I am just tickled with our resource choices.  Our main resource for this part of the year are two small books I ordered from Simply Charlotte Mason.  One book is called "Outdoor Secrets" by Margaret Boyle, published in 1903.  It brims with the child-like wonder that I find all things Charlotte Mason.  I fall in love with this flavor of education every time we've done lessons with it this year.  "Outdoor Secrets" is a collection of short nature stories.  The stories are so imaginative, light, and creative that the boys and I are whisked away into few moments of learning that hardly seem like "work."  The other book that we use is the called "The Outdoor Secrets Companion" compiled by Sonya Shafer and Karen Smith from SCM.  It's been just perfect for us so far.  There is one "Outdoor Secrets" story for each unit, along with a couple to several lessons for each story.  An accompanying poetry anthology is recommended to partner with the books.  It's called "Favorite Poems Old and New."   Of the four poetry books we use (and all are great), THIS is my favorite. Fantastic!  Lessons in "The Companion" include activities such as poetry relating to that particular lesson in nature, extra stories or non-fiction books to check out at the library, small "experiments", or hand-drawn entries into our nature journal.

Last week we read "What the Golden Rod Did." Then we read aloud several times the poem "The Golden Rod" by Frank Dempster Sherman and the boys copied their favorite lines into their nature notebooks.  Lastly, we took a hike into the forest to find some Golden Rod and draw it in our nature notebooks.  We went to Devil's Lake State Park for our adventure.  My thought was to walk just a bit to find Golden Rod and also to show the boys the neat stairs built into the bluffs.  I merely wanted to point the staircase out to them in hopes that soon we'd be able to bring Doug along for a family hike.  The stairs going up are quite strenuous.  Doug and I had already talked about whether or not we could all make it to the top.  We figured we'd have to wait a couple years. Wowzers!  That turned out to not be the case!  I showed the boys the stairs and they flew right up them.  I held Nutmeg's hands as we hiked and picked her up every now and then to skip a few stairs.  As we went up, I kept asking the kids if they'd like go down now. No chance!  They never answered; just kept flying up!  I couldn't believe it!  It was a blast!  I definitely had my share of adrenaline for the month!  The top is quite alarming with small children and there I was with three by myself!  I kept them away from the edge! Ack, scare me to death.  We eventually found a safe way down and joined another homeschool family on the way.  Phew, I sure got an all body workout.  I ended up carrying Nutmeg most of the way down.  I didn't want to lose my sweetie to a cliff.  Twas a good day all around!