Many times in the Bible we find mention of God’s miraculous and powerful creation in nature. God clearly wanted us to notice what He made (Job 38). Not only should we notice it, but give credit to Him, the Creator, and use it to learn from. Even amidst the sin of this world, His works are plainly evident in what He made. Not just simply by observing the visual beauty of His work, but also “seeing” the lesson in it. The more I have appreciated His works in creation, the more I’ve been able to “see” His lessons and learn about Him.

One of the ways I have found to express and foster my appreciation of God’s creation is through photography. In those frequent moments on nature walks when my children and I observe something that makes us stop and give awe to the Creator, out comes the camera because I simply must capture what I see to share with others. Is this to “show off” my amateur photography skills? Well, maybe a teensy bit :), but mostly it’s to share my excitement for the beauty I observe and give the Creator the credit for making it. Even in the midst of dreary weather, there is always something to find to appreciate and find beauty in.

And as the seasons pass by I love looking back on photographs that I have taken in different seasons to remember and appreciate them for the beauty I find during that particular time of year.

I have particularly become fond of macro photography. Macro photography, to me, is simply taking very close-up pictures with the “macro” setting on your camera. It allows you to see detail, that sometimes, even the human eye cannot see easily.

Do you have to be an excellent photographer or own a very expensive camera? Absolutely not! Not every photo I take is of high quality (my camera is not a professional camera). In fact I just snapped a couple of pictures this morning of our friendly neighborhood Pileated Woodpecker and since I have to zoom so far in to take the picture, my photos aren’t the best. But I love them just the same as they are a memory to me of how excited my children and I were to observe this beautiful bird.

My children also enjoy looking back over our nature photos from previous years. It brings back many fond memories and continues to foster an appreciation of God’s creation in them too. This is a photo of my daughter from several years ago (she’s 13 years old now!) nursing a House Finch back to health that had flown into our glass sliding door. And the one below that is Grandpa holding my son (who’s 11 years old now!) up to see a bird’s nest with babies in it.

In many of our units we suggest nature photography as part of the lessons and notebooking pages for nature notebooks. We hope that you are able to make nature photography part of your nature walks and nature appreciation!

]]> http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/02/08/appreciating-nature-through-photography/feed/ 0 http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/02/06/winnners/ http://shiningdawnbooks.com/2010/02/06/winnners/#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:40:43 +0000 Cindy http://shiningdawnbooks.com/?p=986 Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway for the new and improved Living Literature Grammar and Language Arts Packets!  Also, thank you for all the encouraging comments!!

The two winners chosen by a random generator are:

Cindy – littlefurfamily

Jamie – stolzclan

Congratulations!

As an update for everyone – We are still working on updating all the NaturExplorers units with more activities and more notebooking pages.  Units that are $12.00 have already been updated, the rest will follow over the next couple of months.  Once they’re all complete, we’ll surely host another giveaway of some sort.  Keep your eyes open!

When it’s a bit too cold for little ones to be outside learning about snow, bring the snow inside!  A simple box of snow is a great form of indoor snow study – and it’s LOTS of fun!  (Oh, and it keeps preschoolers busy for a REALLY long time.  WooHoo!)

This is just one of many ideas found in our Snow and Ice NaturExplorers unit!  We’re expecting more snow in KY this weekend and Eli’s already asking if we can bring “thome thnow in to pway wiff.”  :)

Some of you may remember Cindy offering Living Literature Grammar and Language Arts Packets on her website previously.  We’re proud to announce that Shining Dawn Books is now the publisher of this unique approach to grammar for 3rd and 4th graders!

Still containing grammar, language arts, reading comprehension and spelling practice to go-along with 15 wonderful living books, the entire curriculum has been “fancied up” with more color and graphics to keep your child’s attention.  We’ve also added a few other touches here and there to improve the usability for you and your child.  And, believe it or not, we’ve even reduced the price from $12.50 to $10.00!

But don’t worry about buying it yet!  We love to offer giveaways for our new products and this time is no exception!

Leave a comment here by Friday, Feb 5th, letting us know you’d like to win a copy of Living Literature Grammar and Language Arts Packets.  Bright and early Saturday morning, we’ll draw the names of TWO winners!

(I’m not sure if I’m supposed to mention this or not, but you can see a full preview of the curriculum by visiting the CurrClick page here.)

The large black dot in the button above is actually a sun, for some reason it’s not showing up. But it downloads fine!

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Joyce Sidman is a brightly illustrated book that takes your children (4-10) on a poetic journey through each of the four seasons.  The beautiful details of nature during different times of the year are described through color.

Yellow slips goldfinches their spring jackets, yellow shouts with light!

In spring, yellow and purple hold hands.  They beam at each other with bright velvet faces.  First flowers, first friends.

For children learning to describe nature observations in a nature journal, this book is a great example of poetic, lively description.  It’s also useful for younger children just learning about colors and/or the characteristics of each season.  My children from 3-13 enjoyed this book so much – and so did I!

Ice covered plants are one of my most favorite things to observe in the winter. There's just something so magical about ice encapsulating the world. These were found along the side of a building covering a clump of dead grass.

Ice covered ponds make me think back to all the frogs and fish from the summer. Wondering where the frogs are buried for their winter's rest below the ice and whether or not the fish are still swimming about is fun to think about.

This ice-covered creek is still barreling on below, but it looks so still and serene you'd never know it.

I love to see icicles clinging to rocky cliffs as if they appeared there magically. In actuality, they're typically formed from spring water flowing from the rocky crevices.

Another of my most favorite finds in winter is a thin layer of ice on a stream where you can watch the water running underneath. Beautiful!

And how cool is God to create such a glorious icy wonderland on top of a pile of straw rubbish?

Here's another view of the frost. Awesome, huh?

Our Snow and Ice NaturExplorers unit encourages you to get to know ice, as well as snow and frost this winter.  Have you made any awesome winter discoveries?

Ferns were popping through the snow all over a wooded hill.

Lichen glimmered on fallen logs all over the woods.

Snow melted around seemingly dead plants and trees, reminding us that they're still alive enough to produce heat.

And left-over berries from autumn still cling to their bushes giving us hope that life will burst forth again soon!

Visit Our Journey Westward to see a post about signs of animal life we found on another recent nature walk.

Activities concerning winter life, melting snow, animal tracks, animal adaptations – plus SO MUCH MORE – can be found in the Snow & Ice and Coping with the Cold NaturExplorers units.  I hope your winter studies include lots of nature!

Making measurement notes.

Last week, we were blessed with a dry snow that led to lots of snow drifts.  I sent the kids on their merry way with a clipboard and measuring tools in hand.  Their job was to find and measure as many snow drifts and icicles as possible, noting measurements on a scrap piece of paper.

Measuring icicles on the van.

Measuring icicles on the watering trough.

Measuring a small snow drift near the house so mom could get a picture from her cozy perch inside.

Preschoolers and dogs enjoy helping, too!

After a warm cup of hot chocolate, I pulled out these two notebooking pages from the Snow and Ice NaturExplorers unit.  (For the record, the pages within the unit are in color.  I was out of color ink, so copied them in gray scale.)

On The Measure of Snow, they took their snow drift measurements and created a graph to display the information. My daughter began with a line graph, then changed her mind to watercolor a bar graph. Thus the eraser marks!

On Interesting Icicles, I had them order their measurements from shortest to longest and draw a picture of an icicle up-close. My oldest had to create her own graph from the icicle information, too.

They LOVE this kind of math – hands-on, active, meaningful, real.  And, I didn’t have one complaint as they joyfully learned about and practiced accurate measuring, ordering mixed/decimal numbers, and completing/creating graphs.  Ah, a fun time of math and nature study, indeed.  (And I didn’t have to get out in the cold to boot!)