Nature Study

I finally did something with the kids that I've been wanting to do for a long, long time. We made birdfeeders. Well, ours were more like squirrel feeders, but whatever.





We covered pine cones in peanut butter, then dipped them in birdseed, and hung them on our Christmas tree, which is currently residing on our deck. All four feeders that we made were carted off by squirrels (which I totally don't mind), so we started tossing handfuls of birdseed onto our snow-covered deck.

We got huge numbers of birds and squirrels, much to the children's delight. We got out our field guide and identified a few varieties of nuthatches, wrens, and swallows, and we even saw male and female cardinals. Bluejays were the most common, though, and the kids soon learned how to quickly find the bluejay page. It's so adorable to hear them shout, "Look, Mom, a blue jay! I can see his blue back and wings and his black necklace! And he's very loud and noisy!" Too cute.

Today we went outside, as I just got around to getting the kids snowpants and boots. They had a good time, but as I don't have anything other than moccasin-type boots, I got tons of snow in my shoes and froze. It was also more work than I've ever done for a mere 20 minutes of fun. Yikes.

Nurtured By Love Link

Here's a link to a fantastic blog entry by the woman who writes Nurtured By Love: http://nurturedbylove.blogspot.com/2007/12/homeschool-beginnings-3.html. It's about how she started homeschooling and it's fascinating to see how it happened. She's a great, intelligent mom who unschools her four children who are quite precocious.