Showing posts with label preschool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preschool. Show all posts

Monday, July 6, 2009

Nature Study 1

We started our new Nature Study program today. We're using Anna Botsford Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study, and the guidance and some of the ideas from The One Hour Challenges at this website, plus our regular nature science stories, like these, and these, as well as made up ones and Native American stories.
Avery's drawing of a Clover flower. It doesn't show up well in the picture, but in his book it is sweet. Diminutive, but isn't clover, really?

We had a picnic under this tree. What a great way to start a nature study outing!



One of the original old apple trees still growing and producing on the Mission grounds.


I think this is the seedpod of an American Sycamore tree. There are several at the Mission, providing beauty and shade to the park grounds.


Wasp nest under the slide ramp. The boys watched closely for some time.



Miles' nature book drawing. He finished pretty quickly then spent some time moving piles of dirt around and poking them with his apple wood stick.



My page. We were sitting directly under one of those ancient apple trees, so it seemed natural to draw that. Ummm... not that I'm a fabulous artist or anything, but it's fun to all sit and draw together. And we were using these cool Lyra Aquacolor crayons, which draw nicely like rich, soft crayons, then magically turn into a watercolor painting when you brush with water!
Our two topics for further study are wasps and cottonwoods. We'll spend a bit of time this week finding out about those things.

Monday, April 27, 2009

My favorite letter!

Miles is really into Letter "M" these days. He sees them everywhere, all the time. It's pretty great, really. "My favorite letter! There it is!" he shouts with glee, and he's just as happy when it's upside down.
We haven't really done any letter stuff yet- Waldorf kids wouldn't study letters until 1st grade and I'm not in any rush with this kid. Still, he knows his "M"s. He knows their sound, their shape, their place in his heart. He just doesn't always know their name. I'm pretty sure that's why they're called "my favorite letter" instead of just "M".