Our Green Hour Assignment

We've been slowly following along with Barb's Green Hour Challenges, over at the Handbook of Nature Study. I know, she's already on Assignment 14, and I'm only on Assignment 4. But, as you read before, I'm trying to lose the perfectionism and simply do what I can.

So here's what Green Hour Assignment 4 looked like for our family.

Choosing a focus: Options for our yard and immediate neighbourhood were birds, insects, wildflowers, garden flowers, weeds, and trees. A little bit of talk narrowed it down to birds and insects, and in the end we chose insects.

Heading outside: The kids eagerly donned their runners and jackets (it's been pretty dreary, cold, and wet the past few days) and we started in the back yard. While there, I tried to encourage them to look where insects might be: on branches, under leaves, on the ground, etc., as well as to look for other insect-related things like chewed branches, webs (I know, spiders aren't insects, but they do catch insects in their webs), and so on.

After about 15-20 minutes outside corralled the kids and brought them in. It wasn't too hard, because of the cool temperature (only about 5 degrees C). We talked a bit about what we saw and heard, and then we got out all our nature journals and began to draw and write.

Here's what the two oldest came up with:

The Little Man (age 5) drew the honeycomb from a wasp nest that we found on the ground after it was pulled out of the garage roof during construction last week. Being the only one of us to actually find an insect, The Little Man made sure to include a drawing of it in his entry (top right, yellow). I transcribed his descriptions and put on the date.

My Girl spent a great deal of time working on her depiction of the comb from the wasp's nest. She paid careful attention to the colour, and even indicated the size in her entry. (After that she just explored the art equipment I had brought out for the occasion: watercolour pencil crayons, brand new LYRA pencil crayons, watercolour crayons, and so on.)

We had a great experience with this Green Hour Assignment! I'm so thankful for Barb's initiative as it has really inspired me to make Nature Study a bigger priority without being overwhelming!

We can't wait to get out again soon, especially as the weather should be turning around in a couple of days, too!