Foreigners are Everywhere!

We have been taking quite a few walks in the past two weeks.

Of the many things we have seen in nature, none was more exciting than the ringed-neck parakeet.

The boys were out in the woods when they heard an unfamiliar bird call that caused them to look to the direction of the call.

This little beauty (originally from India) was difficult to spot, so here's a close up:

We also spotted a squirrel's drey.  It is more than likely to belong to a grey squirrel (native of America) because we do not have red squirrels where we are.

As we walked further along on one of our walks, we saw evidence of a lot of deer activity.

There were a few different types of deer tracks, some bigger than others.

We have half an idea which deer the different tracks belong to, but we want to be sure so we consulted this very useful deer guide which points to three types of deer:

1. fallow deer (originally from the Mediterranean and the Middle East)
2. roe deer (native to Britain)
3. muntjac deer (native to Southeast China and Taiwan)

We have seen the fallow deer and the roe deer in groups in the fields around here, but the muntjac deer is much more elusive and is therefore a very rare sight.  Its presence was confirmed by the droppings I found nearby, according to the Muntjac Field Guide.

At first we thought they were rabbit droppings, but upon reflection (I doubt many people reflect upon animals droppings, but there we are), we noticed a few distinctive features about this patch of droppings:

• there was no smell (rabbit droppings usually have a foisty smell)
• they were slightly bigger in size than rabbit droppings
• there was only one clump of these droppings (rabbit droppings would have been more spread out and numerous over the field area)

That's probably more information about animal droppings that most people care to know, so let's move on to the next set of evidence to deer presence:

See those parts of the branch circled in yellow in the photo above?  Those are evidence of deer gnawing on the branches for food.  The branch was about adult waist height and the type of marks on the branches are that of animal gnawing on them.  Deer usually eat fruit and berries, but they'll sometimes have to make do with barks in winter when food is scarce.

We also spotted our first batch of snowdrops (native to mainland Europe) last week.

The first bunch of them was spotted in a neighbour's front garden, but a few days later we saw carpets of them deep in the woods.

I also spotted a lone hare (native to Britain) in one of the fields very early on a cold, misty morning.  It seemed slightly lost and wasn't displaying any of its usual 'mad March hare' behaviour.

So far, out of the seven things we have spotted, five of them are non-native.  To add injury to the insult, the most unusual creature that we saw (even rarer than the ringed-neck parakeet) was the red-legged partridge (native of Continental Europe).  That brings the native-to-non-native ratio to 2:8, or 25%.

And I bet you would not be able to guess where we spotted this rare bird: on an airfield!  It certainly pays to keep our eyes open at all times!

When we first spotted it, we were not sure what bird it was.  As it was quite a distance from us, we had thought it was a female pheasant.  When we came home and zoomed in on the photos, we first thought it was a grouse, because of its body shape.  However, the page on the RSPB site tells us that it is not a grouse, so we looked into our next possibility, the partridge, and with the help of the RSPB pages, we determined that it is the red-legged partridge, with it distinctive plummage and white chin. 


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/24/15
2. Finishing Strong #44 
3. The Virtual Refrigerator
4. My Week in Review #26
5. Hearts for Home Link Up - February 26 
6. Collage Friday: The Well Rounded Homeschooler
7. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the really awesome snow
8. Keeping Company: February Link-Up
9. Science Sunday #18

Finally!

We woke up in the middle of the week to this:

It was not a lot of snow, only about an inch, but Tiger had been waiting for this snow for two years (we didn't get any snow last winter), so he was adamant that he was to play outside.  Being the understanding and sympathetic mother than I am, I let him have his way.  Tiger is a lucky boy, considering what some school children have to contend with given the same weather.

After an hour or so outside, Tiger came in to warm himself up with a hot drink while reading a few books to get himself in the right frame of mind to start our lessons.

 

While we have done a little study on snow before, I figured it wouldn't hurt to do a little review,

before we did a little experiment on insulation whereby we wrapped one same-sized ice cube in a different material (e.g. flannel, paper bag, cling film, baking paper, aluminium foil, etc).

We checked for signs of melting (which would reveal how well the particular material is for insulation) every 15 minutes.  At 30 minutes we saw this:

After an hour, we saw this:

Our result showed that the three least insulated materials are:

1. aluminium foil
2. nappy bag (big surprise!)
3. dish cloth

The materials that provided the greatest level of insulation are:

1. brown paper bag (another surprise)
2. flannel
3. J-cloth

Even though we had very little snow this time, some parts of the country has been experiencing snow storms since the beginning of 2015:

Across the Atlantic, the east coast of America was also experiencing blizzards, on a much larger scale:

The various degrees of snow conditions got us curious to find out the differences among sleet, hail, and snow.  It is quite amazing to know that all of these different conditions came from the same source, water:

As we learned about avalanches from the documentary above, we did a simple experiment to show how larger objects in an avalanche will tend to drift to the top of the heap.

We put several small objects of different shapes and sizes (e.g. a lego man, a round lego shape, a red lego rectangle, an eraser, a small metal stick) into a jam jar and poured rice into it to cover the objects.  As Tiger shook the jar each time, different objects surface to the top, except the metal stick which never did.

As the snowfall was such a rare event and was the first time that it has settled enough to allow for some play, we decided to put it in our Calendar of Firsts for the week as "first settled snowfall" and drew a little snowflake to mark the occasion.

There are many different ways to draw snowflakes but we really like Shoo Rayner's friendly and approachable style so we have been learning a lot from him lately, including how to draw a snowflake easily:

This was followed up by the end of the week with my first sighting of our grey squirrel.  Tiger had seen the squirrel since the beginning of the year, but I hadn't.

That probably just means that I haven't been looking out of the window as much as he has, because the grey squirrel is a regular visitor to our garden.  If you're wondering why my squirrel looks more like a red squirrel than a grey squirrel, that's because I was practising using crayons by following the instructions here:

This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/3/15
2. Virtual Refrigerator
3. Fininshing Strong #41
4. My Week in Review #23
5. Collage Friday: Our "Classically Eclectic" Homeschool Week
6. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one in which I'm hoping for an early spring
7. Science Sunday: Muscles and Movements in Other Organisms
8. Keeping Company: February Link-Up

Look Up!

From time to time, it pays to look up from what we are doing and see what we can see in the sky.  Guess what we saw when we did?  A Black Kite!  The bird, not the toy.

It is one of the rare birds of prey in UK, and a cousin of the equally rare Red Kite.  Kites (the bird) are easily identifiable by their size (they are bigger than other more common birds of prey such as the kestrels and the sparrowhawks), their circling motion in the sky, and their forked tail.

Our luck in spotting relatively rare birds seem quite high lately as Tiger saw a grey heron fly over the house the following day.

As both birds present rare sightings to us, I chose to draw the kite into my Calendar of First while I wondered whether Tiger would draw the heron.  He drew an Airbus A380 instead.

How relevant is this to our Calendar of First?  Not a whole lot, but Tiger drew it at the same time as I was drawing the kite, and both the plane and the bird can be found flying in the sky, so maybe there is a connection here, if we push hard enough.  At the very least, I just like Tiger's drawing and the fact that he has been practising.

While we were at it, I thought it would be sensible to review what happens to animals in winter, and to look into how birds of prey survive in the urban landscape (since we saw the kite in an urban area).

This post is linked up to:

1. Keeping Company: January Link-Up
2. Virtual Refrigerator 
3. My Week in Review #22
4. Collage Friday: A Typical Week in Foundations
5. Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/3/15 
6. Fininshing Strong #41
7. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one in which I'm hoping for an early spring
8. Science Sunday: Muscles and Movements in Other Organisms

When Storms Get Too Much

For some reason, I had never understood the difference between a tornado and a hurricane, until now when we actually look into the matter.  I knew that both have something to do with strong winds and rain, but that was about it.

The other thing that I was very confused about was the difference between cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes.  It turns out that they all refer to the same thing; the only difference lies in where the wind originates.

We did a few experiments to coincide with what we were learning.

The first experiment has to do with seeing how wind movement varies depending on where it is within the hurricane.  What we did was basically to tie a paper clip to a piece of string then drop the paper clip into the outer edge and inner part of a small glass bowl of whirlpool.

Our bowl is too small so our observation only lasted a few seconds.  However, we did observe that the paper clip moved much faster when dropped in the inner parts of the whirlpool compared to when it was dropped on the edge.

The next experiment has to do with testing different strengths of wind using a "wind tunnel" made out of a cardboard box.  We placed a few items made out of different materials (e.g. pewter, plastic, paper) and had a fan blow at them at three different strengths.

Wind strength 1:

Wind strength 2:

Wind strength 3:

Since changes in weather are ultimately caused by a change in air pressure, we decided to make a simple barometer.

The idea is that it should work like this:

We dutifully placed our homemade barometer and measuring strip outside to wait for the changes in atmospheric pressure, only to find that the strip would not stay on outside due to exposure to the wind and rain.  It is no good placing the barometer indoors because the air pressure inside is not going to change enough to cause the marker to change.  In view of that, we made another barometer, this time placing it inside a bigger jar.

The reason for placing the barometer in a bigger jar is to enable us to observe how the barometer actually works by changing the air pressure inside the bigger jar by pushing and pulling on the balloon cover that enclosed the jar.

 We also learnt a fair bit about air pressure and its relation to temperature from the following documentary:

To understand the scale and destructive potential of a hurricane, we looked at what happened when Hurricane Katrina landed in New Orleans a few years ago:

This post is linked up to:

1. Science Sunday #14
2. Collage Friday: A Typical Week in Foundations
3. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with sunshine, emerging routines, and vocabulary cards
4. My Week in Review #22
5. Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/3/15
6. History and Geography Meme #152
7. Fininshing Strong #41 

Blow, Wind, Blow!

We decided to extend our weather observation from last week by looking more closely into various aspects of the storm more closely.

First, we looked at wind.

Then we opened the two (I don't know why we have two, but we do) boxes of weather experiment kit and built a better rain gauge than the one we made last year, as well as two anemometers.

Why two anemometers?  Well, because the manual one is obviously not good enough so we had to build a fancier, bulb-lighting one.

We soon realised that the low-tech one is a lot more practical, because we could stick it in the middle of the lawn and watch the wind cups turn while we had to run out into the blistering wind to put the bulb-lightning one to good use... The lesson for us is obviously not to be seduced by flashing lights.

We then looked into the very sudden, few minutes of strong wind and thunderstorm last week and found that it might have been part of the mini tornado that took place in Harrow, Wales, and Cornwall.

Now, that explains the strange weather!  Even though UK does not normally get the full strength tornadoes like the ones in America,

we have been getting increasing numbers of them year-on-year.  Apparently, there was a sizeable occurrence in Birmingham ten years ago:

So what causes a tornado to form?

 The following documentary does a really good job of explaining it:

Inspired, we conducted a few very simple experiments to help us understand convection currents (the interaction between warm air and cold air that happens in thunderstorms) a little better.

For the first experiment, we filled a glass tray with tap water.  When the water is completely still, we put a few coloured ice cubes at one end and pour a few drops of red food colouring at the other end.  The aim is to observe that the warmer colour (red) rises to the surface of the water while the colder colour (blue) sinks to the bottom.

The second experiment is to simulate the convection cycle to show the movement of warm and cold water that is similar to the interaction between air masses with different temperatures.

Basically what we did was to fill a large jar with cold water, and a plastic cup with very hot water mixed with red colouring.  The plastic cup was then covered with cling film which was held in place by a rubber band.  The plastic cup was lowered carefully into the jar before a slit was made to the cling film with a sharp knife to allow the coloured water (hot) to rise through the cooler water.

After a while, the hot water will cool down and move back closer together, then drift down through the larger jar's water.  This movement shows that hot air rises and cool air falls.  It's very straightforward, isn't it?

Just for fun, we made our own super-easy-to-make mini tornado in a jar.

This post is linked up to:

1. Science Sunday: What You Have Been Doing
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 1/27/15
3. History and Geography Meme: Feudalism and Manorialism
4. Collage Friday: A Typical Week in Foundations
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with sunshine, emerging routines, and vocabulary cards
6. My Week in Review #22

It's Wild Out Here!

When we started our Calendar of Firsts, I expected our lists of sightings to thin out quickly and they sure did, when compared to our initial records.  From our lists in the past week:

• a flurry of snow

• lightning
• thunderstorm
• hail storm

 Listen to the noise and see how much hail accumulated on the window sill!

• very strong wind

• iced-over water droplets by 5pm

All quite wild (by UK standard), if you ask me.

Looking through our list for the week, I asked Tiger to choose what he would like to draw.  His first choice was to draw the hail storm, which both of us thought was the most interesting thing that happened, weather-wise.  However, I could not find any instruction to draw hail storms, so we settled for capturing the essence of the sudden flashes of lightning in the middle of the week and the thunderstorm that followed immediately afterwards.

As you can see from our entries below, we have taken a fair bit of artistic licence with our Calendar of Firsts.  Our entries probably won't pass the rigourous test of 'Charlotte Mason-style authenticity' (to whom the idea of Calendar of Firsts has been attributed) but doing it our own way has kept our interests up and more importantly, made us feel happy that we have remained true to our (my son's and my) uniquely defiant, non-conformist selves.  I realise that we will probably never become flag-bearers for anyone else's system, no matter how much we admire or are inspired by it.  Luckily, we are very comfortable with adding our personal touches to things/methods so what you see is more of a norm than an exception here!

As before, we noted the first sightings of nature occurrences in our books.  At the end of the week, we chose one or two items from that week's list to draw.  The first item we drew was the lightning, because that the most dramatic natural phenomenon for the week - this says it all, doesn't it?  We actually lead rather placid lives.

Then, Tiger wanted to draw some trees on fire, although we didn't see that happen here, thankfully.  By his logic, lightnight sometimes strikes trees which causes trees to catch fire, so drawing flames would be a suitably relevant addition to our entries:

The last thing we drew was the "Bang!" graphic.  Obviously, any self-respecting real, serious artist would not draw sounds in his/her drawings, but we are not that serious around here so it's ok to add visual sounds to our drawings, and we did hear the loud cracking noise of thunder so I'd consider the visuals as our attempt at a realistic representation of what we heard:

For someone who is looking to replicate exactly the Charlotte Mason-style Calendar of Firsts, our example here would probably 'lead you astray', so to speak.  However, it is an approach that keeps us interested and brings us joy, so it works for us.




This post is linked up to:

1. Science Sunday #12
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 1/20/15
3. The Virtual Refrigerator
4. History and Geography Meme: Introduction to the Middle Ages
5. Collage Friday: Homeschooling an 8th Grader
6. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the first week of workbooks
7. My Week in Review #21

New Year Firsts

After two weeks of complete rest, and a wonderful New Year's Day breakfast, I thought everyone would be as eager as I was to get back to work.  Apparently not.

Monday was a flop.  I tried to get our routine back in order and was met with a mutiny whereby I was told that it was very unreasonable to start lessons on the first Monday of the first week in a new year.  With such a start, the rest of that day was pretty much a gonner.   I was furious, to be it mildly, but there was very little I could do to force the issue, without causing a permanent damage to our relationship, so I directed my excess energy at tidying up the living room and Tiger's bedroom instead. Well, at least something positive (clean rooms) came out of a negative situation!

Tuesday was not any better, for a different reason.  Tiger was (more) ready to start work but our boiler broke down that day, which meant we had neither hot water nor central heating.  It was one of those timely experiences (since we are studying the Victorians) that we would rather not have, especially when outside looked like this:

The plumber was only available the following day.  With the temperature inside the house being not much higher than outside, and feeling rather ridiculous walking around the house in three or four layers of clothes to keep ourselves warm (just like the Victorians), we decided we might as well be outside.

The rest of the week (or what was left of it) was spent mostly outdoors, observing nature.  It was my way of easing ourselves back to a full workload -- hopefully, that means next week -- and to get reconnected back to ourselves and with nature.

Nature study was sorely lacking last term because I thought we would concentrate on other aspects of science.  I did not think that we would miss it too much, but all of us felt less grounded for not being in nature enough in the past few months.  This year I want to be more intentional about making more time for nature study.

With that in mind, as well as being influenced by a book that I have been reading, I introduced Tiger to the idea of keeping a Calendar of Firsts, which is a list of things that we record as we observe them for the first time in nature.  The idea is that, after a consistent practice of doing this over a number of years, the child would begin to develop an awareness for, or start to identify, certain patterns in nature.  In the middle of this page is a clear example of a Calendar of  Firsts.  Ours are less fancy -- we used the simple slim week-to-view diary that can be bought from anywhere that sells stationery.

Our process for this is very similar to that of keeping a nature journal:
Step 1: take a walk or look out of the window;

Step 2: identify on the spot the plants and animals that are familiar to us;

1. mallard
2. moorhen
3. coot
4. budding snowdrops
5. Canada goose
6. berry-bearing holly
7. budding crocus

Step 3: take photographs of those that we don't know of;

A few unusual guests at the pond.

• Photos 1 and 2: These two birds are obviously related to the mallards, but we cannot be sure of their specific names, although we are guessing that they might be a male Gadwell (photo 1) and a female Gadwell (photo 2).
• Photo 3: The tufted ducks are seldom seen at the pond but there were more than 10 when we visited.  Also very unusual were the hundreds of common gulls there
• Photo 4: We saw a lone Egyptian goose for the first time.  Its markings are unmistakable, now that we know what it is.

Step 4: identify them at home using guide books or the RSPB bird identifier;

Step 5: put an entry in the Calendar of Firsts.

It started off as a simple list, and the photos above show our record for the past nine days (since January 1st).  Tiger's list and my list are slightly different since our rule is to only record things that we have actually seen/heard by ourselves rather than listing down what someone else has seen.  For example, Tiger saw a Yellowhammer out of his bedroom window this morning, but I did not, so it is on his list and not on mine.

Our lists look very full because it is the beginning of the year, and we are listing everything we see or hear for the first time this year.  I expect our list to thin out as the weeks go by, but it is still amazing to note how much wildlife there are around us, if we actually take notice:

• weather conditions (thick fog, heavy rain, thick frost)
• primrose flowers in blossom
• fallow deer
• robin
• badger sett
• pheasant
• jay
• pigeon
• blackbird
• green woodpecker
• dunnock
• great tit
• grey squirrel 
• magpie

Once we completed our list for each two-page spread, I thought our pages would look prettier with drawings on.  For each spread, I let Tiger choose which animal or plant from the list to draw.  He choose ducks and robin.  Not wanting to turn this into a full-blown nature journaling exercise, we decided to keep our drawing time to under 10 minutes each, by following along the video:

While I drew my pictures in the spaces in my Calendar of Firsts, Tiger drew his in a separate sketchbook:

To each his own is the name of the game, especially around here.


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 1/6/15
2. Virtual Refrigerator
3. My Week in Review #19
4. Collage Friday: Learning About the Civil War
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with all the Painting
6. Science Sunday #11: Vegetative Reproduction
7. Keeping Company: January Link-Up