Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing nature music CD’s from Global Journey Music.  As you may already be aware, each of our NaturExplorers studies includes themed music recommendations.  So, I was quick to jump on the opportunity to review these particular CD’s as they could potentially make lovely additions to the recommendations in our units.

After spending several weeks listening to the variety of CD’s that they sent my way, I’m happy to report that they most certainly do make a wonderful addition!  Here are some of the specific CD’s that I was given (the others I will be reviewing soon at my personal blog, In the Sparrow’s Nest):

Click on each of the icons above to visit the Global Journey Music website and learn more about the CD and to listen to a sample.

I have listened thoroughly to all of the selections I received, and I enjoyed each and every one of them.  I’ve always found peace in getting outside in nature and experiencing the sounds first-hand, but it is also wonderful to be able to listen to the calming sounds while in my home or in the car.  I particularly love choosing a selection to listen to at bedtime; it always calms my busy, overfull mind.

We are adding each of the titles above to the appropriate NaturExplorer study in which the theme fits.  The Nature’s Best and Classical Nature CD’s will be added as a recommendation in all of our studies.

While I took pleasure in all of the provided CD’s, my personal favorite was Thunderstorm!  There was something about it that was extra calming and inspiring all at the same time.

I highly recommend all of the above selections as wonderful additions to your CD collection.  And as a pertinent addition to your nature studies!

This week I’m going to feature how I applied ideas from our Butterflies Flutter By unit in my nature club yesterday.  I’ve been thrilled that been able to use the ideas from the studies for my children, but also they’ve helped me lead my nature club.  This is the second summer that I’ve lead the nature club and I can’t imagine not doing it now!  I’ve enjoyed it so much.

Yesterday’s meeting started out with a usual 10 minute teaching time.  I took the information directly from the “A Bit of Background” section in the unit.  We learned about the following:  metamorphosis, the butterfly life cycle, pollination, camouflage, how a butterfly drinks nectar (proboscis), and the fact that butterflies are cold-blooded.  At the end of the teaching time I gave the children an objective that I took from the “Getting Outside with Butterflies” section in the unit.

• If you are able to get close enough, see if you can watch a butterfly’s proboscis dip down into a  flower.

Wow! We had a great time exploring!  We searched the edge of fields that contained lots of wildflowers and were able to see several butterflies fluttering about.  We also searched a butterfly garden that the park had planted where we were able to observe several Black Swallowtail butterflies.

In my photo below you can see a couple of the butterflies towards the top of the photo.  They were sipping away on the flower drinking nectar with their proboscis!

With our objective satisfied, we went on to explore further.  Here are some more photos.  We were able to safely catch a couple of butterflies to observe.  One was a Cabbage White butterfly and the other was a Red Admiral butterfly.

Then, Julie, one of our nature lovin’ moms and her son found our prized attraction…caterpillars!  They found two little green caterpillars munching away on a plant.  It was an excellent lesson in two things:  camouflage and caterpillar defense mechanisms.

First, the caterpillars were a perfect green to blend in with the plant they were on, and as you’ll see in the photo below, the caterpillars have a “stinger-like” thing on the end of their tail.  This is just a harmless hair, but predators don’t know that.

And of course, me being the crazy nature lady that I am, I had to take the caterpillars home to try and identify them, along with some of the plant they were on to keep them fed.  When I got home, I was full of excitement to find they are Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth caterpillars!  These are very special moths which don’t really look like moths and aren’t nocturnal like most moths.  I became acquainted with these unique and very friendly little creatures a couple of years ago.  Please check out my post Snowberry Clearwing Hummingbird Moth – Up Close to find out about my experiences.

I am going to attempt to keep them through turning into moths.  I’ve made them a habitat (again using the instructions in the Hands-on section of our unit), but will probably have to go back to get more of their host plant.  if you look really hard in the picture below you can see both of the caterpillars (look at the top right corner and bottom left corner of the leaves)!

In the meantime, I’d like to share one more thing with you…a notebooking page from our Butterflies Flutter By unit!  Click on the preview below to download.  And don’t forget, our study is FULL to the brim of tons more ideas and notebooking pages!
Parts of a Butterfly

The more I have studied and learned about rocks, the more I see of our Creator and His evidence of the worldwide flood.  I hope you too will take some time this summer to explore the very interesting world of rocks!

]]> http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/07/13/learning-about-rockin-rocks/feed/ 1 http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/07/05/were-so-excited/ http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/07/05/were-so-excited/#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 08:30:27 +0000 Melissa http://shiningdawnbooks.com/?p=1479 We are pleased to announce that we’ve finished updating ALL of our original units! We just finished revising Spectacular Spiders and it’s back up on our website, along with all the others. We now offer 18 nature studies! BUT, we’re now done yet. We’re currently working hard to bring you the next in our NaturExplorers series – Incredible Creeks – one of our favorite nature study topics! We plan to launch this new unit well before the end of summer, so stay tuned.

We’d love to hear how your summer nature studies are going. We always get inspired to hear stories of how you are getting outside with your children and enjoying God’s creation!

This may not look like a huge mushroom to you, but to us it’s massive!  And you’ll notice a smaller mushroom below the large one in it’s shelter.  Below is the size of a normal mushroom in these parts.

We got out our ruler and took this opportunity to do some mushroom measuring.  The small mushroom above is about 1-1/2″ wide across the cap.  This huge mushroom we found, measured 11 inches across it’s massive cap!  Yep, that’s almost a foot!

And the stalk was 3″ thick!  As I looked at the following  picture I noticed the gills (underside of the cap where spores are dropped out).  I thought how cool it would be to make a spore print out of this thing!!  I also thought about how large the mycelium (root system) must be below it.  The mushroom is simply the “fruiting body” of a very large web-like root system below the ground.  Once this big mushroom serves it’s purpose of dropping spores to reproduce, it will quickly wither away.

We went exploring around the area and found several more mushrooms of varying sizes, all of them much smaller than our mammoth one.  This one below measured about 2″ across the cap.

We also found a few waterlogged logs full of funky looking fungi such as below.

If you are experiencing wet and humid weather don’t miss this opportunity to get outside on a fungi hunt!  All of the activities and information I mention above are included in our A Fungus Among Us study, including lot of notebooking pages to use, one of which is a place to write all those measurements down that we took!

]]> http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/28/a-huge-fungus-among-us/feed/ 0 http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/22/welcome-to-the-rainforest/ http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/22/welcome-to-the-rainforest/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:30:50 +0000 Melissa http://shiningdawnbooks.com/?p=1446 We actually live in a deciduous forest habitat. But you’d think with the torrential downpours and hot, humid conditions we are experiencing, we must be on the verge of becoming a rainforest.

Almost every day lately we’ve had thunderstorms, temperatures near or above 90 and humidity levels at 70 percent.  In fact the buckets of rain have been more than our little creek could handle and it flooded the lower level of our yard.  That was a bit scary.

However, it’s nice to know when life give you lemons and a whole LOT of water, you can make lemonade.  We’ve been using activities from the Remarkable Rain unit and have been measuring rainfalls, watching the weather forecasts and comparing notes.  And learning many more weather related things, including all about floods. :)  We’ve sat outside under our covered deck and have listened to the rumbling thunder as the storms have rolled in and out, and marveled at the night sky lighting up with lightning like a fireworks display.

And when lightning and thunder wasn’t threatening we’ve even been doing a little rain dancing.

Even though the weather conditions might not be ideal there are still many things you can do to enjoy and learn about God’s magnificent creation!  Now pray for us that we start looking a little more like a deciduous forest again!

]]> http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/22/welcome-to-the-rainforest/feed/ 0 http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/11/wildflowers-fungi-and-snakes-oh-my/ http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/11/wildflowers-fungi-and-snakes-oh-my/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:30:27 +0000 Melissa http://shiningdawnbooks.com/?p=1430 This last week when we attended the book sale in Louisville, a couple of people inquired if our units would be good to use in nature clubs….Oh Yes!  In fact each unit has a section in the back with ideas especially geared toward nature clubs. However most of the activity and lesson ideas throughout each unit could also be used.

I just happen to lead a nature club myself and I use our units each and every week for the information I present and any activities we do.  This coming Friday’s nature club is on the topic of wildflowers and we will be using a  scavenger hunt notebooking page from the Wonderful Wildflowers unit.  Even though each of our meetings have a specific area of focus for that week, we often branch off and end up exploring many other topics as well.  For example this past club meeting we started out talking about and observing erosion and ended up also learning about wildflowers, fungi and snakes!

Here are a some pictures from our meeting of things we saw.

Many varieties of vetch are in bloom right now, including this beautiful Crown Vetch.

And also this Cow Vetch, which is the most beautiful purple color.

Then, we noticed the most beautiful fungi (yes, fungi can be beautiful) that I have ever seen!

The color was a rich salmon and it flowed like waves.

And last, but not least was when Bobby caught us a water snake! Very cool!

If you would like to know more about starting a nature club, I’ve written a post about it!  In the meantime, don’t forget that our units are a fabulous tool for helping you lead your group!

"Fire Pink"

And some wildflowers are especially interesting because they have unique leaves, such as the Goldenseal below. Not to mention the quantity of petals involved too!

"Goldenseal"

Because there is such a large diversity in the wildflower kingdom it makes for a great teaching tool. I think the biggest of which is it sharpens observation skills.  As suggested in our Wonderful Wildflowers unit, each time my children and I discover a new wildflower we take note of the shape, feel, size and color of leaves, stalk, and bloom. We note the details of the bloom such as how many petals does it have, what color are they, what does the stamen and anthers look like. We also talk about what we find most beautiful about it.  It takes just a minute or two to make our observations, but it teaches my children attention to detail and appreciation for the vast variety in creation. This rolls over to help them in other subject areas as well.

Another angle that we suggest in our unit is to use macro photography to foster this attention to detail and appreciation. Such as in the picture below of the Red Clover. Most people step over this wildflower everyday and do not notice the beauty it holds. But with Macro photography (or even a magnifying glass) suddenly this “every day” wildflower becomes quite intriguing.

"Red Clover"

Also, the Common Chickweed, again as it’s name suggests a common wildflower that you may step over or on every day, becomes a colorful show of anthers when you zoom in on it.  This wildflower is tiny, so you may never notice it otherwise.

"Common Chickweed"

However, sometimes the color of a particular wildflower, such as in the case of the Cow Vetch below, will stop us in our tracks and command our attention. No macro needed to observe this wildflower’s flare.

"Cow Vetch"

Then there’s the below wildflower. Every now and then there’s one that make us go “hmmm, interesting”.  We’ve come to know these as either wild onion or garlic. Did you know they were wildflowers too?

"Wild Onion or Garlic"

And don’t forget that every now and then while observing wildflowers, you can find something else pretty amazing; a shiny, tiny creature in an armor of red with black polka dots.

"Ladybug"

And one last thing of note is that one of my favorite things about wildflowers is the fact that the varieties are always changing from week to week. It’s as if you get to observe a different landscape every time you venture out to observe. One week Philadelphia Fleabane is blooming in all it’s splendor, the next Wild Petunias, nature is constantly donning a new outfit of wildflowers.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to dive into the diverse, ever changing, fantastic world of wild, wild, wildflowers!

]]> http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/06/03/wild-wild-wildflowers/feed/ 0 http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/05/17/growing-up-in-nature/ http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/05/17/growing-up-in-nature/#comments Mon, 17 May 2010 15:04:33 +0000 Melissa http://shiningdawnbooks.com/?p=1320

“It would be well if we, all persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” –Charlotte Mason, Vol.1, p. 61

Up until about five years ago my children rarely really got out into nature. If they did it usually wasn’t with Mom or Dad, it was with neighborhood kids to play.  But as soon as the Creator “lit my fire” for His creation, being in nature has become our second home.  At that time my oldest daughter was about eight years old, my son was about six years old and my youngest daughter wasn’t on the scene quite yet. We embarked upon a journey, a journey into falling in love with the beautiful things that God has gifted us with on this earth by His hands.

What surprised me more than anything, was not only did we find enjoyment amongst nature, we began learning and growing in character from it.  My two older children, even though they didn’t start from a really young age in nature, clung right to it naturally, and a joy that we all didn’t have before in our lives emerged. Charlotte Mason says in her quote above that once they get in touch with nature a lifelong habit is formed, and I couldn’t agree with this more. We have lived that quote. She says we were all meant to be naturalists, each in their own unique way, God put a love for His creation into our hearts when He created us.

Even though my oldest daughter is now a teenager, her love for God’s creation continues. Sometimes in her “teenage awkwardness” she becomes embarrassed with how much she LOVES and knows about nature, but she recognizes it’s importance in her life and continues to thrive in it.

As a family we thrive on nature observation and walks. Each day I get up, check the weather, and determine if it’s possible to get outside in nature that day. Whether it’s for a grand adventure or just a quick stop at a park between errands, I’m glad to make time for it. I see the “fruits” from the time we spend out there. At first it took a lot of effort to get out there, I didn’t like to be uncomfortable and sometimes in nature you might sweat or be a bit chilly.  But soon I learned that the desire and the outcome was far worth a little uncomfortableness!!

I challenge you to become in touch with nature, make the effort to find beautiful spots in His creation to visit and explore. Bring your children, sometimes go alone, just get out there and give Him the opportunity to touch your soul with what He created for YOU.

Bright green indicating areas of new growth

Again, new growth pushing through

Tiny male cones clustered together

Showing male and larger female cones

Male cones, interesting purple color

Female cone and areas of bright green new growth

Part of the conifer grove where we explored

It was such an awesome experience today! If you’d like to learn more about Conifers you can find lots of information and enough activities to fill a month in our Constant Conifers unit study!