Handbook of Nature Study: Salvia Flower

Friday morning bring an email tucked into my in-box with our Outdoor Hour Challenge topic. This week we were preparing for a day trip to Portland, making lunches, cleaning up the house, waiting for a meeting to get out, working on TOS projects – etc.  I wanted to show the boys the challenge so that we could keep an eye out for the Salvia Flower while we were in Portland.

We have a friend working on his homework at our house and he got excited about the study. We showed him our flower field guides, Handbook of Nature Study book, the email, watched a quick video, and looked at some pictures. He said he knew where some were planted in town. The boys caught his excitement and started looking at the field guides.

We found from a small flower book that the Skullcap, the blooms in May, is in this family. It grows in the forest next to our house. I was getting ready to finish the lunches when they asked, “Well, are you going to show us in the forest??” Um. I guess? You guys really want to look now instead of getting on the road to go to an amusement park?  Ok.

They wanted to show me a mushroom patch growing in a new spot. I told them we’d study mushrooms another week this Autumn, so we took some photos.

Nathan wanted to show me the blueberry bushes growing – he’s been bringing me baggies of them home all summer. Lucky Me.

We brought home a couple of samples to look at. They had long lost their bee seeking flowers. They have a spark of remembering that there is medicinal uses to Skullcap and Salvia and are eager to look it up.

I showed them the Advanced Notebooking Pages in their binders, just to show them what we could do – later – like after we went to Portland, and no. They wanted to do it Now.

Did I mention their early morning appointment was at a coffee shop on the other side of town for a Wyldlife Leadership training? Next time I’ll have to start my coffee when they do. My cup I still 1/4 full of my first, they are 2-3 cups into their day. Oy.

At his previous school, our friend had points taken off for drawing waves on his papers. My son told him we get bonus points for drawing in a full page. So after he drew his Skullcap, he put it on the beach, added the outerspace and a skyline. Bravo.

I love the freedom of home learning. The simplicity of taking a walk with the boys with my first cup of coffee. I love the student led aspects of today. I love the fact that they want to continue looking for Salvia and are looking forward to researching medicinal purposes. Nathan is still shy with his notebooking page – and Jon has yet to fill his out, but I think this was a great start to the Autumn Challenges!!!