Mar 13, 2008

Green Hour #4: Coming into Focus

This week for Green Hour we are beginning to focus on a specific aspect of nature. I haven't received my Handbook of Nature Study yet, so I still feel like I'm winging it. (ha ha...) We would like to spend the next 8 weeks focusing on animals. We've been interested in birds for a while, it will be good to do some real learning about these fascinating creatures.

This week, however, we haven't been very successful in the outdoors. We played outside a lot, but haven't done a formal hike. Today we went to the Bean Museum and saw LOTS of animals. We met another homeschooling family there. Our children gave presentations on animals they have been studying. Samuel gave a terrific presentation on sharks. Elise did a nice presentation on pigs. Why pigs, you ask? "Because they are pink." The other family gave presentations of animals they created. It was amazing. They sculpted and painted the animals and gave them features appropriate to the habitat they lived in. They classified them and gave very detailed descriptions of their life cycles. We are going to try this in a couple of weeks. It looked like so much fun.

You can read the report Sam gave on sharks here. And Elise's journal entry here.


"They have more shells than Mummu!"--E. "The wolves freak me out mom."---C.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great pictures! I haven't been there in ages, although I'm thinking of sending A to one of their Saturday classes again. It will be fun to see how everyone's nature study goes now that we're focusing on different things.

Melissa said...

"Because they're pink!"...love it! I think their diorama boxes look great!! What a wonderful learning experience. Great photos, thanks for sharing.

Blessings, Melissa
www.homeschoolblogger.com/melissal89

Ms Eva said...

What a fabulous museum! And the kids played the role of the naturalists giving talks on their animals - love it! :)

Michal said...

it's been a few years since i visited my old alma mater, but last time i did, it was to take my kids to the bean. they loved it. i was just thinking the other day about taking them back the next time we're in utah. it's such a great, kid friendly place to observe animals up close, which is sometimes difficult at the zoo.
as always, thanks for sharing!

An Ordinary Mom said...

Oh my, the Bean Museum brings back wonderful memories for me. I used to take my students on field trips there and then there were the couple of semesters that I had classes in there (I was a Biology major). How fun to see pictures!

Ice Cream said...

Wow, sounds like a wonderful experience for all. That looks like a great animal museum.

Jill Hunt said...

Can we come play with you? You do the funnest things!

Tammy said...

My 7 year old daughter's favorite animals are pigs, too. Why? Because pink is her favorite color, too!!!!! :)


They would have so much fun playing together.....

Anonymous said...

I love the pink pigs!!

Looks like a great museum - we have a similar one near us (in Manchester, England) - and our son loves to visit.

Thanks for sharing!
~Chrissy

Tina in WA said...

I LOVE pigs! A wonderful animal to give a report on. :o)

~Tina

Dana Leeds said...

I SO understand the "because it's pink" thought. :-) My daughter used to be about EVERYTHING pink! And, before that everything HAD to be yellow! Thankfully, now that she's 7, color doesn't matter as much.

Enjoy your studies of animals!