How to be observant

Observation is one of the cornerstones of any good scientific process. All good scientists know they need to look closely at things to work out how they work or notice minute changes if they're conducting an experiment. They have learnt how to be observant.

"Observation is essential in science. Scientists use observation to collect and record data, which enables them to construct and then test hypotheses and theories." (Science Learning Hub)

 
Today I'd like to share with you one way we've been fostering observance in our home education through natural sciences. Many children have a natural interest in the outdoors, in nature and animals. Fostering this interest and using it to encourage careful observation is an excellent way to encourage your children's scientific tendencies.

What this means for us is many different things. It may be spending time by the riverside or at the beach. It might be leaf collecting or painting tulips, going bird watching or star gazing. All these activities cultivate not only great observation skills but our children's sense of wonder. 

The activity I'd like to share today is botanical drawing. That sounds fancy but round here it mostly means taking time to draw, colour and paint plants and flowers. 

Supplies

• Nature journal or paper. We like water colour weight paper best either in notebooks or loose leafed. We also love water colour postcards. 
• Drawing pencils
• Coloured pencils or felt tip pens or watercolour paints. The latter are our favourites because we're big fans of botanical books and they're often illustrated with watercolours.*
• A frame or things to mark out a square (we used four barbecue skewers) 

 

Method 1 Nature Trail

1. Take turns to be the guide. The first guide leads everyone to a plant or flower of their choice.
2. Everyone draws the flower or plant. 
3. Take time to observe the details, the shapes of the leaves or petals. 
4. Add colour.
5. Once everyone has finished, the next guide leads them to a new flower or plant. 

Observing and drawing flora and fauna has been part of education for centuries. Keep your eyes peeled for examples in old books, on postcards and tea towels. Or in Cecily Mary Barker's delightful and accurate Flower Fairies Books.
 

This activity encourages children through art to explore flora and fauna. Drawing activates our observational skills in a different way to photography for example or using words. 

Method 2 Make a Scientific Record of a Designated Space

1. Someone picks a spot (on the grass, in the soil, on the forest floor...). Place your frame on the ground. 
2. Record what you can see in the frame in a drawing. 
3. Add colour if you wish.
4. This can be repeated in as many locations as you wish.

This activity is actually very similar to what botanists do out in the field. They make Plant Surveys. They do it to find out how many of a particular species is present in a particular place or to discover the distribution and populations of many plants in a particular place.

In our version the emphasis is on observing what's there and finding a way to record it. So far we haven't explored the idea of trying to tabulate this in a graph or table. 

To extend this activity, grid your frame so you can be even more precise about distribution and use graph paper to make an even more accurate representation. 

Be Observant Together  

Children of all ages can enjoy botanical drawing. The important thing is that whichever activity you pick to do, make sure you do it with your children. Seeing you observing and drawing is the best encouragement there is!

 
*Matt Sewell is one of our favourite illustrators. We love his gentle water colours which make the  birds seem so vivid.

Moments of Magic - One way to make great family memories

Last week Frank and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. As we got married after ten years together it was also a twentieth anniversary celebration. We wanted to do something special so that we'd remember the day for a long time to come. 

It got me thinking about how we make our special occasions stand out. How do we create moments of magic? How do we make great family memories? 

Following on from my previous post Learning all the Time, on Thursday we decided to go somewhere new, to visit a place we've never been. Like this we felt this time spent together would be different. 

The place we chose very last minute, was the Ile de Berder, a tiny island in the Golf du Morbihan (the little sea) which is only accessible at low tide. We checked the tide info and lucky for us the times fit, we would have an hour and a half on the island if we set off quickly. 

We discovered a mysterious, quiet paradise full of amazing trees, beaches, shells and views. We were all quiet as we walked around the island marveling at the beauty we found and feeling privileged to be there. 

Afterwards we all talked excitedly about going back, exploring the wreck we saw, finding more oysters and having more time to spend on the beach. It felt as if we'd made an amazing discovery. Doing something new, something we'd wanted to do for a while but never seemed to find the time for really did make our day special.

Observe, Practice, Be Grateful!

Observation

With all that talk about observation I thought it would be nice to share a few photos. Photography has always been a way for me to record some of what I see around me. I take a lot of nature photos.I love tree bark, lichen, moss and blossom. As well as birds, flowers and the ocean.

 

 

Practice

Someone asked me last year, how I took such good pictures of flowers and things. I replied, practice, practice, practice! I honestly believe it's because I've taken a lot that I've started to take a few good ones. I'll often take multiple pictures of the same subject from different angles. The above shots of what we thought were barnacles is a great example of this. As the one below is of serendipity, just being there in the right place at the right time with the camera ready!

Gratitude

I also take and share photos as part of my gratitude practice as I've mentioned before. Nature is a great comfort to me. Noticing small things in each and every day is one of the ways I remind myself to feel grateful and in turn happy each and every day. 

Five Little Things : Bringing in the Hay

Living in a rural area, we follow what's going on in the fields a lot. From the planting through to the harvest we really enjoy watching the crops grow. Although we may not always be in agreement with our neighbour's farming methods, there's still something awesome about watching a field grow from bare earth through to seedlings and then to full grown crops. 

They're bringing in the hay at the moment here, the large machinery clogging the narrow roads traveling from farm to farm. It's fun to watch but we'd never taken part in it before. Luckily, while on holiday earlier this year, we had the good fortune to meet a friendly farmer who invited the children to join in. They really did have a wonderful time and were able to observe the process and the machinery involved. There really is no better education than hands on experience in this kind of case and I was amazed afterwards at all the details they'd picked up through observation and discussion with the farmer.

One of our objectives when we moved out of the city was that our children better understand the processes by which our food makes its way to our table. Although this mainly progresses through our own vegetable growing, this experience has definitely contributed to their comprehension of the work involved preparing animal feed and why raising animals requires so much land and labour.

 

Five Little Things : Bounty

There's a lot coming in from the garden at the moment. Added to that we made time to get to the Pick Your Own farm this week and came home with just over 4kilos of strawberries. Like all the end of the year parties (pottery, climbing, riding etc) it's kept us busy and away from other things but it is so good to revel in the best of what the season has to offer. Strawberries simmering....

An immensely satisfying stack of jars filled up with homemade strawberry jam...

For the jam, I followed two recipes from the wonderful Canning for a New Generation, the simply diving Strawberry Preserves and my personal favourite the Strawberry and Lavender Jam, with lavender from our own garden. 

Of course the kids wanted to enjoy some of the strawberries other than in jam so we saved enough for a yummy Charlotte... (apologies for the terrible quality of this picture, three hungry beggars did not want to wait!)...

And as if all this strawberry goodness wasn't enough, Maya made us this beautiful salad with home grown Rocket and Borage, a delicious edible flower that brings a lot of bees into the garden promoting pollination across our veggie patch....

It seems to me that really relishing the food each season has to offer us is one of the most important ways we honour nature and fill our children with passion and awe for the wonder that is our planet and how it provides for all living things. 

Five Little Things : Keeping us Busy

Such a special relationship

It's been a busy few weeks here. Visitors and end of the school year festivities have kept us busy. Yes even though we home educate we still get caught up in the over busyness of end of term time with lots of parties and events on our calendar. 

One of the things that's been keeping us busy all year really but especially the last few weeks has been Maya's Pony Club activities. She goes three times a week which already means a lot of our time is organised around this activity and has also begun taking part in competitions on Sundays. 

We've been really pleased that she's found a home away from home where she can grow her passion. She's made a band of friends, found other role models to learn from and made herself useful and welcomed in an environment outside of the home. It's really been a delight to see how horse riding and particularly her club l'Etre Cheval has allowed her to blossom and grow. Here are some pictures from last Sunday's dressage competition where not only did she have fun but also excelled at something she loves.

Maya and Janed take third place !

Horsing around with pretend ponies

 

Nervously awaiting the results

 

In front of the judges (in the car)

 

Riverside : Finding Inspiration in Nature for Homeschooling and More

With the recent spell of very hot weather, we've been spending a lot of time down by the river, sharing picnics, trying our hands at fishing and dipping our feet into the wonderfully fresh water.

We are lucky to live within walking distance of the Blavet which is a reasonably long river running from central Brittany right down to the coast where it spills into the sea at Lorient. It's used for electricity and so there are frequent locks as well as a great cycle path all along what must have at one time been a tow path. Sadly there aren't a lot of boats on the river these days. Each lock used to be manned by someone living in an adjacent house but as the old lock keepers are retiring the houses are falling empty. The electricity company no longer sees any interest in filling these posts. Now if you want to pass a lock you have to phone 24hrs in advance to let one of the two lock keepers working the river's 150km long flow know to come and meet you. When the children and Frank were lucky enough to see a boat going through last week and talked with one of these two lock keepers, he explained that this had really reduced boat traffic as it requires a lot of organisation and a lock keeper basically moving along the river with you from lock to lock of which there are 28 in total over a distance of just under 60km. A lot of work for everyone I imagine. 
 

What you do see are a lot of cyclists, fishermen and especially in the school holidays, kayaks. And of course hirondelles, fish, birds of prey and on one memorable evening picnic last week tiny little  baby toads. 

We must have seen a few hundred of these fellows and the sight was truly captivating. Jumping around in the river's muddy edges, jumping up the grassy bank, the wooden steps down to the jetty and even over the cycle path. We had to keep our eyes on our toes to avoid squashing any. Here's an idea of how big they were so you can imagine what a difficult task this actually was:

The children even found one with a missing leg that they were desperately worried over. We discussed taking him home but all agreed we didn't really know how to take care of him and that he wouldn't have much of a life in a tank at home. It seemed best to just let nature take its course. They really were very cute. My camera couldn't get a good enough close up to really do them justice but here's a picture off wikipedia that shows one off a bit better and gives an even better idea of scale.

I'm constantly amazed by how nature offers herself up to us, sometimes something familiar and sometimes something completely new like this. I feel as though after three years, we've suddenly rediscovered the beauty in our own back yard so to speak down by the river. Plans are now fermenting to make a field study of a small area of the river, photograph it, draw it, note what we see at different times of the year. I'm also planning a geography project researching the river. Now I just have to hope the kids will be as enthusiastic about this as I am! And of course I've got a poem or two out of all this too. Here's hoping you find something to amaze you on your own doorsteps this week and may it inspire you as much as it has us.