Bugs at the Rose Garden

We found a lovely new place to go and enjoy nature. Oddly, it’s in our own town and we had no idea it existed…shame on us! Rose Haven Heritage Garden is a public garden and home to over 1600 roses of varying kinds. They are interspersed among other flowering plants, succulents and even a small vegetable garden.  It is all maintained by volunteers of the local rose society. 

We attended the March program which focused on garden bugs. The kids got to hear a short talk on beneficial versus pest insects that can be found in the garden or yard. There was also a table of various insects to examine and a knowledgeable volunteer to give the kids info on what they were looking at. My daughter’s favorite was the compost worms box. The children were invited to dig around and search for worms and grubs.

They also received a checklist of nine different bugs and had the opportunity to walk the garden and try and spot as many as they could. The kids were encouraged to pick up any nature bits lying around the grounds to use in a following art project.

Our kids were having too much fun exploring so we didn’t make it to the sit-down-and-craft part of the program. However, we took home our nature finds and J had a great time creating a ladybug picture on her own. 

Many thanks to the sweet and patient volunteers for hosting this event. We are looking forward to our next visit…maybe bring a picnic lunch and our nature journal. 🙂

 

Dripping Springs Nature Walk

 

 

My hubby has been very busy lately, not only with work, but he is one of the musicians for the Southern California tour of LES MISÉRABLES. It is an incredible opportunity for him and I’m bursting with pride…but it’s a lot of hours of rehearsal and shows.

We’ve been missing him for sure, so on his first weekend off, we decided a day out in nature was in order. We took a drive to  Dripping Springs, a little campground tucked away in the Cleveland National Forest. We’ve camped and hiked there before and it’s usually very quiet…exactly what we needed. 

We enjoyed a picnic lunch and let our little one run up and down a hill, peer into several hollow logs and just explore.

 

We walked along a dry river bed and looked for pretty rocks and found a few that were eye catching, to say the least. 

Waterfall & Shoe Rock

We found lots of lichen and moss that were interesting to touch and look at. 

We pretended we were pirates looking for treasure and drew maps in the sand.

I can’t imagine a better way to unwind after several weeks of a tightly packed schedule, than to walk in the wilds and listen to the gentle sounds of nature.

 

Our Sharks Unit Study

For the month of August we focused on learning all about sharks. This, was again, all my daughter’s idea and I didn’t realize that the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week was also in August. It coincided perfectly and gave us a few more opportunities to find shark information.

We followed our usual plan of starting with a set of info cards and creating a lapbook around our theme. We picked up the Safari Ltd. Sharks Toob at our local hobby shop, which gave us a good start for some different sharks to learn about. We also used some toys that we had on hand to give us a good assortment of sharks.

I used a variety of resources for printables for our lapbook. Many of my favorties came from the always helpful homeschoolshare.com. They have a free shark lapbook full of fun activities and information. I also used some of the great printables from the 3dinosaurs.com shark pack. 

This has been one of my daughters favorite unit studies, by far. I’m so pleased with how much she and I learned together and how much of it has stuck! It really reinforces to me how much better learning is when it is interest led and fun!

Additional materials we used in our Sharks Unit Study:

Handwriting worksheet generator

Shark coloring sheets

Shark Worksheets

Jonathan Bird’s Blue World Shark Academy

My Sharks Unit Study Pinterest board

Our Turtles Unit Study

We recently completed a land and sea turtles unit study. This was 100% my daughter’s idea. She asked if we could learn about turtles and I hopped right to it! I love seeing her excited and interested in learning, and I try to facilitate that in all the ways I can. A good starting place for us is always our Safari Ltd. figures. We already had the Frogs & Turtles Toob, and it contains several species of land and sea turtles. It was just the right amount of new turtles to learn about, with the addition of one of J’s favorites, the Leatherback Sea Turtle. We have an Octonauts sea turtle figure that worked as a perfect substitute! Since we had both land and sea turtles, it made sense to sort of divide up our unit. We focused on land first. Of course, we decided to make a lapbook. It really helps organize all the study materials into one focused place. And J and I both work better that way, I’ve noticed! I created a lapbook layout that was (somewhat) divided into land and sea sections. I found the perfect printables for our book at homeschoolshare.com. I am so grateful for the materials they provide! I have used resources from this site many times and I highly recommend! They have a great set of lapbook templates for both land and sea turtles. They are also conveniently separated into individual PDFs so that you can pick and choose. If that wasn’t enough, they also have a an entire unit study with guidelines and recommended reading to go along with it.

We completed many of the unit study activities for our book, including the turtle diagram, “Turtle Toes” book, “What  is a Turtle Shell?” book, and the Turtle Report shape book.  I decided to make one shape book for each of the four land turtles we were studying. It really helped break down all of the differences and specifics of each turtle…for both of us! 🙂 I also made up some Montessori inspired three part cards with the specific turtles we chose to study. My daughter really likes these, especially matching them up to her Toobs figures. It was also fortunate that we already had the Safari Ltd. Safariology Green Sea Turtle Life Cycle figures, which was helpful in discussing how and where turtles lay their eggs. It was nice to have a baby turtle figure to go along with the study. I’m really glad my daughter asked to learn all about turtles because it turned out to be very educational for both of us. I can’t believe how much I personally learned about them and it was wonderful to do everything together.

Additional material we used in our Turtles Unit Study:

Turtle Coloring Pages More Turtle Coloring Pages (species specific) Turtle Themed Worksheets Sea Turtles Online Info Book My Turtle Study Pinterest Board

Books:

A Home for Little Turtle by Ariane Chottin Tortoise’s Dream by Joanna Troughton

A Day With Pirates!

My daughter LOVES pirates…truth be told so do I! We especially love the world of Peter Pan, Captain Hook, fairies, mermaids and all the magic that goes along with it. We of course watch lots of Jake and the Neverland Pirates  too. Yes, we love pirates. It was therefore a necessity that we attend Pirate Days at the San Diego Maritime Museum. The collections of the Maritime Museum are vast and engaging. One of our favorites, among the many incredible ships there, is the Star of India. Built in 1863, it is the world’s oldest active sailing ship. It is a beautiful vessel inside and out. Many volunteers were hard at work cleaning and maintaining her in the midst of festivities and tourists. I was surprised that my three year old daughter stopped to take a look at almost every display. She was fascinated with everything on the ship…from stem to stern, so to speak. There were also plenty of pirates on board that were ready to engage in sword fights and playful banter. My daughter, J, wore her finest and was ready to join the crew! She was picked unanimously as the winner of the girls costume contest. I think she charmed just about everyone on board! 🙂 One of the activities was a scavenger hunt that had you follow clues through several ships. Your prize for all of the effort was a visit to the magical mermaid grotto set up on the Star of  India. This was very enchanting for J! The mermaids handed out jewels and a coveted key necklace to her. It was perfect, for she was sure it opened a treasure chest somewhere on board. This necklace is so special we have since redesigned a new and stronger chain of beads for it. It gets worn regularly! Besides exciting encounters with the buccaneers, there were also other re-enactors aboard the ship HMS Surprise. An admiral made his rounds and hosted a “dance” with ladies and gentlemen in period dress.    The San Diego Maritime Museum is a wonderful opportunity to experience hands on history. There are many educational opportunities for the family. They have many exciting events to attend throughout the year. It is a great day trip and makes for a fun homeschool field trip as well.

Our Butterfly Unit Study

I have found that my daughter really enjoys learning with a unit study. She is engaged and attentive and retains so much of what we learn. I also enjoy them and find I really like the process of designing a specific study for her and I to do together.

For the month of April we focused on learning about butterflies. We were planning a trip to the San Diego Safari Park’s annual Butterfly Jungle exhibit and I thought learning about some of the insects we would be seeing would be fun for J. Well, it was so successful that our one week butterfly study turned into a whole month of material.

We started with the lapbook, Insects: Butterfly Speedy Lapbook from Homeschool Bits. This is a quick little book to print and assemble with facts that are short and to the point. It was actually the perfect amount of information for my three year old to understand and learn something from. I decided to work on a little part of the book each week so she could really focus and absorb what we were learning.

We discussed the butterfly life cycle first. We used our Safari Ltd. Safariology figures to match up to the coloring page. It also gave J a good idea of what the actual things we were talking about look like. She really enjoyed this part of the study. I also printed out several coloring sheets of specific butterflies and we found as many butterfly/caterpillar stickers as we could for her to embellish her book with.

We broke out the Playdoh one morning and made butterfly impressions with the life cycle figures. They turned out very pretty!

As I mentioned before, the highlight of our unit study was our trip to the Butterfly Jungle. We picked a few butterflies from the handout to study and learn about the week before. J chose the Blue Morpho, Giant Owl, Orange Julia, Monarch and the Zebra Longwing. She learned their names and to identify them by sight. Her expression was adorable when she walked into the atrium and saw the actual butterflies we had spent so much time talking about! She knew every butterfly she was looking at! It made this mama quite proud!

I’m really happy with how our little unit study went and I think my daughter enjoyed it too. It was lots of fun and learning for us to do together and that’s the best part!

Some of the additional materials we used in our study were:

Butterflies (Penguin Young Readers, L2) by Emily Neye

Butterfly figures 

Safari Ltd. Butterfly Toob

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Stickers

Butterfly Coloring Sheets

“Head, Thorax, & Abdomen” The Insect Song

Butterfly Jungle

My hubby and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary recently. We never do cards or gifts but opt instead for a special trip or outing. Before J was born it used to be a weekend trip to Vegas, but now we like going somewhere all three of us can enjoy together. It worked out perfectly that the San Diego Safari Park’s annual Butterfly Jungle exhibit was in full swing. We have taken J to this every year since her birth and we decided it would be a wonderful anniversary day special trip. Thankfully, hubby got the day off from work and we spent a rare weekday at the park. It was fantastic, as all the schools were back in session from spring break. The butterfly exhibit was very quiet in comparison to the long lines and packed house that we usually fight through.  We even got a really close parking spot…win, win, win! In preparation for our visit, J and I started a butterfly lapbook. We studied three of her favorite butterflies, the Blue Morpho, Orange Julia, and Giant Owl. Before our trip she was able to read their names and identify them by sight. So imagine her delight when we walked into the atrium and all of these glorious butterflies were fluttering around her. I think she was astounded! We have worked on this book the whole month of April and I’m planning a separate post all about it.

  Butterfly Jungle is a photographer’s paradise! I was so happy to have my new camera there to use this year!

Great Orange Tip

Blue Morpho

Blue Morpho

Blue Morpho

Orange Julia

Orange Julia

J’s absolute favorite butterfly is the Orange Julia and she wanted one to land on her more than anything. It took some waiting (around 40 minutes) and patience…two things that aren’t usually easy for a three year old…but we finally had success. The lovely little Julia perched on my daughter’s finger long enough for her to admire it’s delicate beauty and for mom and dad to snap plenty of photos!  And as it turns out one of those photos was selected as a winner in the park’s Butterfly Jungle Instagram contest! We won a cart safari for four! We have never done a cart tour before so we were especially excited by this. We are hoping to take my sister and brother in law and their little boy. Since we are all homeschoolers, I believe this will be a superb field trip! Many thanks again to the Safari Park for choosing our photo. We are so grateful!

Santa Rosa Nature Walk

The weather has been beautiful and spring-like lately. We decided to take advantage of it and get outside. My little girl, J, loves nature walks, but it is not so easy to find somewhere to explore that isn’t an hour or more drive. Thankfully, we remembered a nice little Nature reserve that’s only a few miles away. Santa Rosa Plateau is a 9000 acre ecological reserve. It is home to many species of birds and plants. 

We had a nice time just strolling along appreciating the nature around us and taking photographs.

We took the Granite Loop Trail. Including the walk to the picnic grounds, it’s a little over a mile. I thought that was pretty good hiking for a 3 year old. She showed interest the whole way, not one complaint! That made this mama pretty proud!

 

Santa Rosa has a lovely picnic area. It was shady, quiet and we spotted many birds in the surrounding trees.  Some of them even ventured up close.

One detail I really appreciated about Santa Rosa Plateau is that they have many of the plants and trees identified at the visitor center. I love being able to note the names for easy reference when we study them later at home.

This turned out to be a great close to home day trip. I’m looking forward to our next visit and discovering some new plants and animals to photograph and learn about.

 

Zoo Scavenger Hunt Books

We recently visited the San Diego Zoo with my sister and her boy. The zoo is large and there is no shortage of fun and interesting things to do and see. My mom suggested a great way to sneak in some learning while we were there, via a scavenger hunt.

I knew immediately my daughter and nephew would love this! A quick search yielded many great ideas for zoo themed scavenger hunts. I decided to go with this very cute passport style book from Disney Family. It was small enough to fit in our packs and easy for the little ones to hold on to in their strollers. I brought along a small bag with crayons  and star stickers to “stamp” each page as they completed it.

This little game turned out to be a bigger hit than any of us adults expected! Both kids were interested in their books the whole day and ended up finding every animal. They loved earning a star after each successful find and my daughter was excited to color in each animal as well. The coloring also provided a  little something to do during the walks between areas. When we got home the kids were proud to show Grandma their completed books and found out they had earned a prize for all of their efforts. Thanks Grandma! 🙂

This is such a simple way to reinforce sight words, animal recognition and working towards a goal…all while having a great day at the zoo. I know I will be making more of these for another visit. I’m planning on designing one specifically for the Safari Park with animals I know are there. I also told my sister I would put together one for Sea World for my nephew, since they have a season pass and go frequently. I’m sure he would love a sea creature scavenger hunt! I guess I better get busy, I have a lot of crafting to do!

Fall Nature Walk

We love to go on weekend adventures! Most of our destinations require travel time in the car. It seems most of the interesting places we like to visit (zoos, aquariums, etc.) are at least a good 45 minutes away. However, we decided to revisit a local state park that is only ten minutes from our home. We used to make frequent trips when my parents had an RV, and would camp there on weekends, but haven’t been since my daughter J was born.

Lake Skinner turned out to be a nice place to spend an afternoon picnicking and exploring. It was rather quiet for a holiday weekend. We had a nice lunch under a group of very shady Coast Live Oaks. We found lots of acorns on the ground and talked about how they grew to be trees. J also enjoyed hunting for acorns with their “hats” still on.

We were surprised to discover a huge bee hive up in the trees above our picnic spot.  We brought J’s binoculars for bird watching, but they proved useful for bee watching as well. The bee hive discovery was pretty exciting and she has talked about it several times this week, so it definitely made an impression!

After lunch we walked a trail that winds through the park. We saw several different kinds of birds and I was able to photograph a few of them.

I’m planning on identifying as many as I can and adding them to our nature book, as well as a few of the plants. We also walked down to the lake and watched some fishermen load their boats onto trailers.

After that, it was on to the playground…but not before a stop to play in a pile of huge crunchy leaves!

I’m glad we found a place to visit, that is close to home and where we can get out in nature! We will definitely be frequenting this park, and maybe next time we will spot the Blue Footed Boobie! 🙂