Outdoor Hour Challenge. VI.

This week, it was cold.

And a few things delayed the prompt beginning of our walk for our weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge.

(A filthy wretched poop in a swimmie.  Not because we’d been swimming, but because Fox saw the swimmie had Nemo on it and asked to wear it.  And I was thinking no farther ahead than that moment so I consented.)

I actually didn’t feel like trekking out.

It was a hard sell this week – to me.

But although delayed and sort of half heartily, I put on gloves, a scarf and a huge sweater and headed out of doors.

The pressure of children knowing our schedule and the desire for routine and consistency and the groove we’ve already worked to create in our Tuesday afternoons propelled me to the woods.

We stayed close by because Piper and Otto had both fallen asleep and were napping inside.  (Together.  In Otto’s crib.  It was pretty much fantastic.)

Turns out, it was actually a super successful nature walk.

We are almost finished with our ten steps for the “getting started” challenges.

Our lesson was to use magnifying glasses.  Which I wouldn’t normally have enough of for my little class of students. (Also known as my children. Or my prodigy. Or my offspring.)  However.  Last summer a friend of mine who used to be a teacher gave me a couple of box loads of school supplies. And when we moved I finally unpacked the boxes and unearthed a cache of science stuff – protective eye glasses, beakers, thermometers, compasses and magnifying glasses.  Enough for all the little hands and eyes at our house.

We used the magnifying glasses to study closely whatever we could touch.  Grass. Tree limbs.  Our bird’s nest.  A tiny downy bird feather we found.

We continued on with our focus of birds and read about the house sparrow in the Handbook of Nature Study.  I read the leading thoughts section of the book and as we looked outside to spot a house sparrow I was able to quietly share the information I had gathered from my reading.

Back in the warm (ish) house we all drew house sparrows in our nature journals.

The simple little bird feeder we bought a few weeks ago and hung outside our school room window has provided a virtual Disney World for our feathered friends apparently.  It’s been incredibly popular for both birds and Bergen.  He sits perfectly still for twenty minutes or more throughout the day as he studies the birds that flitter and fly all around the porch now.  Berg is continually asking us all to whisper so he can study his birds better.  The birds have been varied and so amusing – cardinals, robins, mourning doves, house finches and tufted tit mouses.

Our renewed interest in birds and nature study has also directed us (through means of some of you readers) to participate for the first time this weekend in the Great Backyard Bird Count.

Bergen’s little lists of birds is adorable and his passion for bird watching is contagious and enthusiastic.

For this week at least, it was the building up of the pattern of weekly Nature Walks that compelled me to complete the task – and I am so grateful for that.