Tag Archives: nature study

Winter Nature Study Ideas

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 1

Winter in south-eastern Virginia is a toss-up. Sometimes we get snow. Sometimes we just get ice all winter. And sometimes we get, well, not much of anything. This year has been pretty mild, which has been nice since we got so much outdoors-y stuff for the family this year. The kids have been loving our backpacking “practice hikes” around our fields–which is just our normal walks, but with our new gear on. (Well, Mr. Fix-It just puts his pack on to be a good sport with the family–but the rest … Continue Reading…

10 Nature Journaling Notes

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 4

We started nature journals with the kiddos over the summer. While I haven’t been completely faithful with them, they’ve been a great activity and we catch up every couple of weeks. We’re certainly not stopping and they’re not just about nature now. We’re recording gratitude lists, family trips, and just snippets of our everyday life together. Here’s a few tips I’ve picked up over the last couple months… 1. Take lots of pictures. This way you don’t lose things just because you don’t draw well or you forgot in the … Continue Reading…

Rainy Day Fun at the Virginia Living Museum {Family Connections Summer 2012}

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 8

Once again I’m joining Aurie, Lisa, Amy, and Connie to share ideas for fun, family activities for the summer. We hope you’ll stop by every Wednesday to share in our theme or link up your own posts about great summertime fun for the whole family! And wow, don’t I feel silly! Last week I posted about Nature Notebooks and summer learning fun, and then said that this week would be our series wrap up–but it’s not! This week we’ve got some great posts about rainy day fun ideas. (Next week … Continue Reading…

Random Mondays

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 3

Friday the kiddos finished up their last day at YMCA camp (we lost another towel and water bottle, and Speedracer’s lunchbox–although we found that again by the end of the week) and we packed up to head to Mimi’s house for a week. Well, they’re going for a week–Mr. Fix-It and I headed home on Sunday morning. Here’s some randomness from my phone camera over the last few days… We’ve been doing some nature studies and nature journaling and it’s amazing to see how the kids eyes have really opened … Continue Reading…

Nature Connections {Family Connections Summer 2012}

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 9

Once again I’m joining Aurie, Lisa, Amy, and Connie to share ideas for fun, family activities for the summer. We hope you’ll stop by every Wednesday to share in our theme or link up your own posts about great summertime fun for the whole family! This week, our theme is Nature Connections–which my regular readers will know is near and dear to my heart!  Nature study is high on our casual summer study list this year and I’ve got some budding naturalists on my hands. One of the ways I’ve … Continue Reading…

Don’t Just Settle for “Not Bad”

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 6

Do you work? Do you worry that you can’t teach your kids because: You don’t know how; or You don’t have time; or They’ve already been at school for 6-9 hours today and they’re burnt out on learning and you’ll just make them hate you? How about 4. All of the above? Yep, #4–That’s been me. #3 has been part of my continuing fear about changing schools too. There’s just tons and tons of stuff that I want to teach my kiddos that they might not get in school in … Continue Reading…

Butterfly Thoughts

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 3

Have you ever heard of chaos theory and the butterfly effect? The idea that there are so many teeny-tiny variables that effect things that you can’t actually predict what will happen, or determine which action caused the final outcome. How often do we tread this course of (hysterically) over-analyzing when things go wrong? What did I do? What didn’t I do? What could I have done? What should I have done? {SIGH} How often do I forget that none of these things I worry about so incessantly are actually in … Continue Reading…

Where Eagles Dare to Fly

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 14

So, I could fill this post with more pictures of sheep and lambs and calves… Or I could fill this post with cute pictures of my kids and especially my boys like I usually do for Boys in Motion Fridays… But I got the coolest pictures of something else yesterday when I left the office! They sort of tie in with the farm, since they were definitely in range of our property “as the crow flies.” And they might have been boys and were definitely in motion. {PS. If you’re … Continue Reading…

Family Time at the Virginia Living Museum

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 5

Our holiday weekend included lots of family time.  Mr. Fix-It was able to be home Thursday thru Saturday and most of Sunday too, even though he was on-call for work, and his sister came to visit for the weekend.  So we took the crew to the Virgina Living Museum.  This trip has been on my list for family time all summer.  We weren’t disappointed.  The whole place is just made for kids! The VLM is all about wildlife and ecosystems native to Virginia (obviously, right?) and has live exhibits as … Continue Reading…

With Wings as Eagles

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

My dad would have been 52 today.  I’ve been saving these pictures from last week for his birthday because he would have LOVED them. If the sight of roadkill bothers you (or you’re a cat lover), you’ll probably want to skip this post. If you’re a fan of Wild Discovery in your own backyard (or a few blocks away, in this case) you’ll probably like these too.  The Fed Ex guy that was stuck behind me seemed to think it was pretty cool too.  Although he didn’t have much choice. … Continue Reading…

The Boldness of Youth

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

We were at the beach for a couple days, so our first day out the kids were a little hesitant.  The waves were pretty big and strong–especially for those of us under 3 feet tall!  And they were new to this whole moving water thing.  Swimming pools don’t chase you and knock you down and suck you back in, ya know.  They played in the water (especially the Ladybug, who had better size on the boys) and mostly on the sand, running down to the edge to fill their buckets. … Continue Reading…

Down by the River

Walking in High Cotton Posted on by 2

I mentioned yesterday that after Cowboy Days, the kids all took a nap and then were raring to go again.  We had a little pool time until everyone was up and about. But there was more adventures to be had. Mimi has a river. My mother-heart was glad to see that it was very low this time of year. It’s a little known fact to everyone except mothers that children who never go to the river never drown in the river.  I know I’m not the only mother to lay … Continue Reading…