Winter Wednesday: Winter Insects

 

It’s sunny and 50 degrees today. We headed outdoors to see what kind of Winter Insects we could find.  I love our Winter Wednesday guided nature studies from Handbook Of Nature Study.

We used these 2 books for our study: 

1. Bugs and Bugsicles: Insects in the Winter by Amy S. Hansen
2. Simon & Schuster: Children’s Guide to Insects and Spiders

We found a spider…………                                       …. and a caterpillar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A centipede ………or millipede……..                       ………. and a wooly caterpillar!

 

 

 

 

 

M5 LOVES the warm weather and bugs.  She was really enjoying herself on our walk.  Most days in February are right around freezing where we live, but not this day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drop by 2 Ladybugs and A Lizard to see what they did on their nature walk here.

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Wednesday: Evergreens

We have lots of pine trees in our yard.  I love their year long beauty!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blue Spruce

 

 

The Norway Spruce

 

 

My gifts from the good Lord!

 

 

Join us each week with Barb’s Handbook Of Nature Study blog – Winter Wednesday and Nature Study  - details here!

Winter Wednesday: Trees–Silhouettes

We had a great time looking at tree silhouettes in our yard this past week.  There were many different shaped trees to look at!  We have maples, pines, pin oak, crab apple, tulip poplar, and more!

 

M5 picked a maple to study.  It has a wide, egg shaped silhouette.

Below are a few tree silhouette pictures from our yard. I took them near dusk several weeks ago. 

 

This book was a good resource

for our study:

Winter Trees by Carole Gerber

 

 

 

Little Sister, M5, feeding the birds under a flowering crabapple tree.  The birds and deer love eating the berries in the winter.  When a new snow falls, this trees has a lot of deer tracks under it.

Join us next week for our Winter Insects Nature Study.  Details here on Barb’s Blog – Handbook of Nature Study!

Wordless Wednesday: Flip Flops in Snow

This photograph illustrates how desperately my girls long for Spring.

We live in the Midwest part of the country so it’s COLD right now…. but not this day in February.  It’s in the upper 50’s and heading to the 60’s on this day. 

The girls headed downstairs to the bin that contains their summer clothes and changed their clothes.  They were wearing flip-flops until the snow froze their toes. 

Sketch Tuesday: Something Disney

 

Assignment this week: Sketch something related to Disney. 

This is M5’s sketch of Mickey (mom had to help with the ears.)

Next week’s assignment: Sketch a bird feeder, with or without birds.

Join us next week for Sketch Tuesday – details here on Barb’s blog Sketch Tuesday.

 

Review: Kid Scoop-Reluctant Reader

 

 Kid Scoop’s RELUCTANT READER SOLUTION offers you and your kids a full year of fun-filled reading and writing activities ! 

It offers 365 days of Fun pages and a monthly digital newspaper called Kid Scoop.

 

Purpose of the Reluctant Reader Solution?  Encourage your child or students to become enthusiastic, life-long readers by offering them interesting and engaging fun sheets to read. 

Cost:  $97.00

What does RR include? Access about 60 downloadable packets of worksheets and an online, colorful, 20 page newspaper - full of more fun reading and activities!  Activities for a FULL YEAR!

What topics are covered for the year? There are about 60 worksheet topics like: Jack Frost, bubble gum, Owen and Mzee, State of the Union, Valentine’s Day, Germ Patrol, clay play, Mother’s Day, nutritional labels, smores, orcas, otters, Tom Sawyer, fitness, safety, gardening, Memorial Day, and many more!

What does each topical worksheet include?

5 to 7 pages of reading fun:

thinking skills, topical information,

games, puzzles, word searches, 

coloring, charting, drawing steps,

writing fun, and more!

What does the on-line newspaper offer? Each monthly newspaper contains about 20 colorful pages of more fun.  If offers an activity calendar, puzzles and brain teasers, ideas for parents and teachers, science fun, jokes, drawing instruction, cool links, art club, and more!  Parents can view the online newspaper and print just what you and your child would like too.

Are you ready to check it out for your family?  Kid Scoop Reluctant Reader Solution link here.

My thoughts?  My girls enjoyed the program and so did I.  Mini-units we used:  bubble gum, Jack Frost, Valentine’s and Pencil Power pages.  I spent a week going through the pages during our class time.  They also colored the pages after school and in the evenings.  Our family enjoyed the Reluctant Reader Solution but I believe we will use the fun sheets and newspaper more in the summer because they will not seem like school work but summer fun reading and activities. I believe the product benefits kids more when the are independent readers, which my girls are not.

How would I use the product?  As a fun supplement. The topical mini-units can add a nice mix to your regular homeschool curriculum.

My girls are required to read for 15 minutes in the evening.  As they are more independent readers, I would give them a fun sheet to read through and do the activities in bed during that week.  Then during school time, I can ask them questions about what they read and review the fun facts.  More information on how to use the RR in your home or classroom is listed here.

What else does Kid Scoop have to offer?  Check out their website here

  Check out what others on the TOS Homeschool CREW are saying about Kid Scoop Reluctant Reader here.

 

 

Disclaimer: I received this product free of charge for review purposes only.  The opinions expressed are mine.

  

 

Winter Wednesday: Winter Weeds

This week’s Winter Wednesday observations: Find weeds – observe their color, stem, shape, size, seeds and seed containers.

We collected twigs and weeds. Then we put them into ziplock bags. 

Below are the pictures of the weeds.  Can I identify them?  Nope - but we had fun collecting, comparing and drawing them.  The girls remembered what 2 of them looked like in the summer months too.

A7 and M5 – compared the weed and seeds with sketches…you will notice it was a little difficult for my scanner to scan the 3-D seeds and pods clearly.

The girls taped the weed, stem, seed pod and seeds onto their study pages, alongside of their sketches.

Don’t forget to drop by Barb’s Blog – Handbook of Nature Study to see what other’s have done with their Winter Wednesday “Winter Weeds and Seeds” studies.