Our nature lesson for the month of January has been about noticing the winter birds, trees, and other identifiers as we create a 2020 Phenology Wheel for our nature journal! https://www.instagram.com/p/B7RaOaPBZNj/ I first heard about phenology wheels in some nature journal Facebook groups. The beautiful artwork reminds me of how cyclic life is and a… Continue reading Phenology Wheel Lesson
Our December Nature Adventure was so much fun! We met at a different park to take advantage of the picnic tables and pavilion. The weather called for rain and our main activity would be working with salt dough! So, even though "there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing...." we still needed… Continue reading Evergreen
Going out on a nature hike to try to spot an owl in the morning is a difficult task to do. Since we most likely will not see one in the wild, the next best thing to do is learn about owl pellets and dissect some pellets to see what we can find! Radnor Lake… Continue reading Owls
Early November seems to be the best time to stop and enjoy the colors of the leaves although this year we had a very brown fall! The drought and then freezing temperatures didn't do much for the fall foliage but we still planned some fun activities to learn more about tree and leaf identification! The… Continue reading Leaf Study
October is a perfect theme to study the fascinating work of a spider's web! Just this weekend, I had the opportunity to see some beautiful orb weaver webs in the forest as well as ground webs decorated with dew drops! There is a lot to learn about the construction of webs and I found this… Continue reading Spiders
As I started thinking about a theme for this month I realized I had been seeing many more squirrels than usual in the day to day nature observations! It is a perfect theme for the beginning of fall! The actual day of our lesson was the coldest we've had in a quite a while and… Continue reading Squirrels
The TN state insect is the Zebra Swallowtail butterfly and it was so much fun to lead students in a nature journal activity where we could notice the shape and arrangement of the butterfly's wings and pattern! Here are references for dragonfly and zebra swallowtail butterfly. https://www.insectidentification.org/insects-by-type-and-region.asp?thisState=tennessee&thisType=Dragonfly%20or%20Damselfly https://www.insectidentification.org/insects-by-type-and-region.asp?thisState=tennessee&thisType=Butterfly%20or%20Moth HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY - pg 404… Continue reading Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly
Our nature adventure today was a blast even though it was HOOOOOOT!!! I wish this Tennessee weather would start to cool off! We had a wonderful group today for our adventure into learning more about the group of orthoptera insects - grasshopper, locust, katydid, and cricket! Here are my lesson notes if you want to… Continue reading Grasshopper Lesson
Backyard birding is such a fun experience in Tennessee! We have a wonderful selection of birds in our area if you have the opportunity to stop, watch, and observe! Of course our very common cardinals, mockingbirds, mourning doves, and house finches are easy to spot and identify, but it's really fun to make a check… Continue reading Tennessee Birds
Learning about mussels was our first class in the Notes and Nature tutorial! We had a wonderful time learning about bivalve and univalve shells and learning how the Tennessee Aquatic Center is using freshwater mussels to help clean the water! TWRA center on Old Hickory Lake To prepare for this lesson, we took a trip… Continue reading Tennessee Mussels
KIND + CULTIVATED 