Thursday, April 14, 2011

Outdoor Hour Challenge #45 Squirrels

It has been months since our last official nature study lesson. With beautiful weather abounding I figured it was high time to start again. I hope to get in as many nature challenges as I can before we break for the summer. Especially since we are just about done with our science for the year. The nature studies (which are much more fun) can pick up some of the slack for when we finish our painted lady butterfly unit and release. I picked the squirrel challenge to get us started because quite frankly they are everywhere on our property. You hear them in the trees constantly chasing each other and their cries when they are alarmed about a hawk, etc. So anyway we didn't have to go farther than our front porch to find squirrels. For the challenge I read to Grace some information about squirrels from the Handbook of Nature Study. We printed a chart with pictures of the most common squirrels found in North America and decided that the species we have is the Eastern Gray Squirrel.
We also looked up the tracks in our track finder guide. Grace sketched a squirrel and their tracks. So good to be back with nature studies again. Of course the two hours we spent at the garden this morning would be considered the same thing just not as formal.

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